Baron Skywalker, Lord of the Blasted Lands
by SappySoulTaker
Summary: Anakin Skywalker frees himself of his chains at a young age. He goes through trauma that sharpens him into a dark force to be reckoned with in the underworld of Tatooine. Crime Lord!Anakin, Powerful!Anakin, Podracer!Anakin. Baron!Anakin CHAPTER 15 POSTED! [Anakin,?fem]
1. Chapter 1

**(25BBY Anakin is 19) (.1 NCs = 10$)**

 **-Chapter 1-**

 **A/N: In lieu of a beta reader, I update my old chapters as I find mistakes. This way I do not have to keep you away from much deserved updates, and still end up with a polished story. IF you notice** **major** **grammar or spelling mistakes or plot holes on chapters more than five from the most recent chapter, feel free to PM me and I will do my best to clarify!**

The sun beat treacherously down on Anakin Skywalker's neck. As he was flashing by, he looked up at the cliff faces of a canyon carving a jagged scar through the eastern wastes of Tatooine. The great rock formation was weathered and had its own smaller gashes displaying all of the times ancient deluges had created rivers of life that battered the wall. 'It's a pity that the skies aren't nearly as keen to rain these days,' Anakin thought with a forlorn look at the evidence of Tatooine's supposed immense wealth off water. 'It had to have gone somewhere, right?'

For the past few weeks, Anakin had been feeling a pull to the wastes and was forced to either abandon his estate just overlooking Mos Espa to trawl through the endless interconnecting canyons in the wastes or suffer through the echoing voices telling him to do so louder and louder. 'I am seventeen, for water's sake,' Anakin said to himself 'I should be able to do what I want.' Unfortunately, said voices obviously had other designs on his time.

Earlier that day, Anakin had decided to take his podracer to check the feeling out. In the past, his feelings had been helpful and today the urge was just too great to resist. Several groups of Tuskens had concluded that taking potshots at him would be fun as he flew past their hiding spots, but they couldn't track his podracer at the speed it flew. He thought back to his first podracer, It was considered fast by current standards, but those standards had been there for hundreds of years and he didn't think technology was supposed to stagnate for so long. "Old idiots doing old idiot things the old idiot way," he remembered saying to himself. This racer topped out at around triple what his first one did. Now that he had the money and facilities, he could focus on design and efficiency, instead of spending his free time trying to scavenge parts that he might or might not be able to use to an unknown degree of success. No way were the Tuskens getting a hit in on him in this baby.

A glint shone off the canyon wall and Anakin cut the engine and slammed the brakes on, swiftly coming to a stop. This was it, he felt it. He jumped out of his racer, taking his vibrosword and a blaster rifle just in case. The wastes were treacherous, sand people often camped in these canyons because of the shade they provided and now that he was off his podracer they would be shooting at a much more stationary target. 'It doesn't feel as if there are people about though,' he thought. Anakin walked over to the cliff wall and began searching for what could have given off the shine. For the most part the wall looked exactly as it was supposed to. Like light reddish sandstone. He walked up the wall farther, farther away from his transportation form than most people would ever dare to in such a treacherous area of the planet and ran his hand along it. Finally his hand brushed past a section that was most decidedly NOT sandstone. The 'rock' felt cool to the touch, even under the hot rays of the sun, quite abnormal for this planet during the daytime, even without direct sunlight. Anakin pulled out his vibrosword and smashed it into the wall, expecting it to cut a deep slash as it was wont to do through the sandstone as if it were butter. *CLANG* The sword hit hard metal and let the whole canyon know it did so while it was at it. 'Shit! I have to get out of here, if there are tuskens within a mile or two, they will be on me in minutes!' Anakin reluctantly left the door alone and returned to his Podracer, but not before marking the location on his map to check out again at a later time after activity had died down some. He dashed to his racer and rushed out of there, he was a pretty good fighter but it wasn't like he could kill a whole village of tusken raiders.

Anakin was a renowned podracer, having an abnormally high win percentage. Even when he didn't win, he had never wrecked a podracer, telling whoever asked that it was 'bad form' and would bring down people's opinion of his skill. He had raced competitively since he was young when he had won his freedom from his owner Watto in a podrace. Unfortunately, Watto, in his anger, had killed his mother Shmi, who was another slave owned by the grubby Toydarian. Anakin was devastated and swore revenge. It didn't take long to collect vengeance and within the month, Anakin had made his first kill at the tender age of seven. He could have paid someone to do it, but that was personal and Anakin wanted that blood to be on his hands, not some hopped up thug with a blaster. He sliced Watto's wings off, dragged him through the streets in front of hundreds of onlookers and out of town then dropped him off a high cliff wall before loading the corpse with blaster bolts. That damn Toydarian deserved it without a doubt and would have done it again and again, but he doubted his mother would have enjoyed watching it, even knowing Watto would have done what he did. Sometimes she was so soft. He was never fingered by the authorities as they were, That says a lot about what kind of friends Watto had. They were probably cheering in the back of the crowd while divvying up Watto's business.

The Skywalker Estate was empty tonight. Usually on weekends, Anakin held extravagant parties for the upper crust of Tatooine. Crime lords, Investors and other wealthy and influential people and their guests were all welcomed gladly. It was good PR, his managers had said. Gives the people who bet on you and whom you make money for and with a chance to get to know you. If the right guests show up, you can get pulled into invite-only circuits on and off-world. Of all the gambling sports, podracing was number one due to all the variables. Hundreds of worlds had podracing circuits of varying affluence. He had raced in five or six different ones and all were on Tatooine. It would be amazing for his career if he got to go to one offworld where the stakes were higher and the other racers more skilled. Anakin had thrown off slavery and with it any grudges gained during that time for perceived wrongs. If he hadn't he would drown in it as half of the free people on tatooine owned slaves, not to mention that they were the ones with all the money.

Anakin's estate was huge and had several buildings inside a high wall with auto turrets that fired a range of projectiles, from stinging bolts through stun bolts all the way up to disintegrators, depending on the level they were armed at into anything that moved without a locator pass. They could be armed or disarmed from a distance. He had a small army of custom battle droids patrolling the grounds. To show off his wealth, real grass adorned his lawns and several fountains could be seen trickling away.

Anakin flew his podracer at reduced speed into his hangar and shut it down, this time turning off the repulsors as well and letting it come to rest on a stand coming up from the ferrocrete floor. He walked over to a desk in the corner and poke a blinking light that signaled a message was waiting for him. No sooner than the message had started, an incoming transmission came in from one of Jabba's bookies.

"Hello? Baron Skywalker? Ah there you are! Are you participating in the race next week? The Harvest Modus?" The jovial Snivvian asked him.

"Sorry Jeskl, something came up and I'll be busy for quite a while." Anakin replied, slightly unhappy. He hated disappointing Jeskl The guy was just radiating happiness all the time and when it left him, he could feel the loss like a hammer smashing his heart to pieces. It's not that they were close it's just that Jeskl's happiness was so intense that the absence of it left a huge void where it should have been. Nobody could be happy around Jeskl if he wasn't. A perfect trait for his line of work, Anakin supposed.

"It's alright Skywalker, these things happen." He said before hanging up.

"What a guy." Thought Anakin. "Oh! The other message!"

Anakin pressed play and the other message started where it left off, which is to say at the beginning. "Greetings Baron Skywalker, My name is Sheev Palpatine, Chancellor of the Republic Senate. I have been a fan of yours for a very long time and would like to invite you to race in a circuit that I have a large share in. The Coruscant Maze is one of the most opulent venues for podracing in the galaxy. You won't find the usual scum of the galaxy jeering the racers that you are likely used to dealing with on Tatooine, here only the most influential of Senators and wealthy business officials come on an invite-only basis. I await your call at your earliest convenience." The hologram fizzled out along with a long held breath from Anakin. 'This is big!' He thought to himself in elation. Anakin pressed redial and sat down to wait for Palpatine to activate up the line.

Palpatine was putting the finishing touches on a document that he was going to run by the Senate later that evening when his communicator blared, indicating an incoming message. He sighed before composing himself and answering it with the best smile he could manage. "Hello, Palpatine here." He said. The man in the image was young, perhaps not even an adult yet, but that's irrelevant. "Ah, Chancellor. This is Skywalker. I am responding to your invitation to the Coruscant Maze. I would be happy to win the thing for you. Should be no problem." He said with such confidence that Palpatine found himself unable to doubt his words. "Great I'll send a ship in time for the next one, It's in six months so you have ample time to prepare. I just need the publicity in all honesty, you can keep all of your winnings. Included in the deal is repeat appearances at your discretion. It's a yearly event you know." Palpatine hung up, dealing with celebrities was always a trying experience for him as their agendas were even more convoluted than politicians.

'What a nice guy,' thought Anakin a bit sarcastically after Palpatine hung up. Well he wasn't in the market for friendship. Fame and Friendship are totally different things. 'In any case I'd better have a masterpiece of a racer ready for the event. It would look terrible if I lost now.' Anakin looked around taking in his immediate surroundings.

His subterranean warehouse like garage was full of pod racers he had built himself and easily over a hundred thousand Nova Crystals worth of top of the line racer parts. He had everything from custom engine blocks he had put together himself to thousands of individual types of screws sorted by manufacturer, type and size. It was separated into two distinct sections. There was 'part storage', with the shelves and racks separating things in an organized manner. A computer kept track of the inventory and there were many droids mulling around that he could query for parts, or simply grab a datapad and fetch them himself. On the other side he had dozens of racers on raised platforms in various states of completion that were being worked on by droids he had built himself. Of course he would be looking over all of their work afterwards, Droids can be near perfect but in Anakin only trusted himself when it came to his racers final inspection. He had a list of mistakes he had found and fixed engraved into the wall of his workshop and made sure to fix the droids that made mistakes so they were more effective in the future. Many of them could have had fatal consequences. A gradual ramp upwards led to the surface fairly close to the inside his compound entrance. Another tunnel was tucked away into the back corner led down into darkness letting out at the base of a cliff a mile away. The second was very heavily concealed and had a ten foot thick metal door that was raised magnetically when he needed to pass through. Anakin hadn't seen a more secure door design. You'd be better off going through the front door of his compound than trying to enter with that entrance. If you knew it existed that is. He had dug it himself in the span of two months with a few droids, making sure to wipe their memory and had not told a soul of its existence. The perfect bolt hole if he had ever seen one, not to mention a discrete entrance and exit to his lair.


	2. Chapter 2

**-Chapter 2-**

The next morning Anakin packed a cutting torch into his podracer and returned to the marked location. It looked the same as before, and a cursory scan for life signs determined that he was alone. Anakin grabbed the cutting torch and got to work opening a hole big enough to fit through. It took a good fifteen minutes before the newly made door fell inwards, letting out a rush of cool and surprisingly moist air blast him in the face. Anakin stepped inside and the biggest grin adorned his face.

Before him was a man made reservoir of water. He walked over to the archaic computer stations and hit buttons until one came online, displaying a status screen of the hidden facility. The amount of compressed water stored within the facility was displayed as well as the date last accessed. The console hadn't been touched in 1000 years! Anakin had no idea how it was still working. 'I guess they don't make them like they used to,' he finally decided. The map showed that this facility went miles underground and held all the water that Tatooine should have had on its surface. A note was hidden in the files that informed him that this facility was created to turn Tatooine into a desert by hoarding most of the water. Apparently it was revenge against a primitive species for a perceived slight against a more advanced race passing through.

'If I just release the water all at once, hundreds of thousands will die in the flooding if these numbers are accurate, not to mention I won't get any money of of it. Plus all my years of buying and conserving water to take care of my trophy lawn will be wasted. I could just sell it bit by bit, amassing great wealth. Yeah, better to be a greedy bastard than kill hundreds of thousands right?' Anakin's thought process was all over the place as he decided what to do. 'In any case I'd better keep this to myself until I can decide what to do with it. If this got out all at once, water would be worthless. I'll come back tomorrow with a bigger transport to transfer more of this to a more secure location.'

Anakin packed up and set a device above and below the hole he had carved that temporarily sealed it up 'I'll bring an actual hatch I can fit there next time, patchwork will have to do for now.' He sped back to his house to plan his next move.

A few days later Anakin sped into the nearest town, Mos Espa, and approached the government building, not that it did much governing other than taking bribes and keeping other governments from staking their claim to the planet, and hailed one of the sentients manning a register.

"Excuse me, I'm A-"

"Yes, yes I know who you are, everyone does, how can the 'government' of Tatooine help you, 'Baron' Skywalker" The Toydarian replied, with ample sarcasm in the right places and an unflattering frown. This got a tangible smirk out of Anakin as it just proved his sentiment about Tatooine's government and government employees. So useless that they themselves knew it. At the very least it was relatively safe within the compound as it was neutral ground from all the local crime lords, private nobles like himself and even the dirtiest of common thugs and they all contributed troops to enforce this rule. One of a very short few safe places, be assured.

"I'd like to make a claim on a swath of land including Beggar's Canyon in its entirety. I'm going to be making a new pod racing venue and will be encompassing a large amount of the canyon and I want assurances that I won't get blocked off later. I of course am prepared to pay for the land. I need someone else to sign off on it so I don't get accused of 'taking liberties' with my title" Anakin said the last bit with a snort.

At the word 'Pay' the Toydarian's ragged wings fluttered a bit and his grimy frown turned into an equally grimy grin.

"Surely we can keep any money off the books, it's not like the money will be used for anything other than going into other pockets, and I can keep your acquisition nice and quiet" A blatant solicitation of a bribe, but Anakin wasn't surprised, nor did he disagree with the man's notion of the likelihood of the money disappearing into one crime lord or another's coffers. It was highly unlikely that the money would stick around in the government's custody for long. Anakin agreed to the under the table aspect and wrote a number on a slip of paper and pushed it across the table to the Toydarian. The toydarian picked it up and frowned then added a zero and slid it back. Anakin picked it up and looked at it. It read 20,000, a lot of money for a simple piece of land.

"You must be mental, unless you are speaking of Republic Credits, You know there is no way Beggar's Canyon is worth even half that in Nova Crystals. Besides the fact I'm sure Jabba would love to do business with me on this, It's a wasteland, only worth anything for the formations that are useful for precious few things." 'Well that and the priceless trove of water within, but he couldn't say that now could he, not could he overpay or people would get suspicious and dig around. He had a reputation to uphold after all.'

The Toydarian paled at the mention of Jabba. He knew Skywalker had an army comparable to the Hutt's forces secreted away under his compound, everyone did. Not to mention his personal skill in combat. If Skywalker wanted to, he had the military deterrence needed to browbeat Jabba for at least fair terms without fear of reprisal, an uncommon situation around here, and as Jabba had a good seat on the Upper Council, he could get the land signed over with no problem. And that would leave him with nothing to show in his own account for this transaction. He hadn't been talking about republic creds, but he could see the young man's point. Skywalker wasn't to be taken lightly at the negotiation table. The only thing he had to offer was temporary anonymity of the sale, not necessarily worth a whole lot as the racetrack Anakin supposedly had planned would have to open up at some time and then everyone who was anyone would be informed.

"Surely you could pay at least 10,000 Nova?' the Toydarian said in a quiet voice.

Anakin turned around as soon as he heard that. "I'm sure my good friend Jabba would jump at 5000, Not like this has to be quiet anyways," he claimed. "And it would probably be more legitimate too, not like many could challenge Jabba's claim."

"3000 is fine!" The Toydarian called out desperately, knowing he was beaten.

"2500 and you forget we had this conversation," re-countered Anakin, grabbing his advantage and driving the deal home. 'Probably could have gone 2000 again at this point but that sets a bad precedent for negotiation.'

"Agreed." The Toydarian was fuming as he compiled the files needed and grudgingly exchanged the datacard for the pouch of nova crystals, tucking it away and changing his sign to closed and bustling away. 'Never can get that kid.' the Toydarian sighed to himself with a mental shrug.

'Yeah that's right, Can't outsmart me, especially when I know what it's worth.' Anakin thought, earning a look from a few bystanders. That a land deal had gone down would be public before the end of the day, but if the Toydarian kept his trap shut, which he would or he'd be dead and he knew it, then they would only know the relative amount of nova crystals and that he would probably visit the plot in the next day.

Anakin wasn't stupid, he knew for damn sure he was being tailed. They could be thugs after his money, thinking that if he popped a bag that size on the table without thought he probably had more, or they could be spies looking for information to sell on his new hideout location. He had long learned the value of keeping on the low such juicy information as "Where and When." It was almost as important as keeping your abilities hidden, thought that was far harder as all they had to do was send in strong enough fighters that you had to go all out while recording the fight from afar. Anakin drove his racer out into the desert. He could feel the tracker on it, but it was cleverly hidden and he couldn't tell where it was and he couldn't take it apart till he got home which was when it would have a chance to send a signal out and infect anything else. THAT was a nightmare that could take weeks to remedy and he didn't have weeks, well at least not that he wanted to spend on this. Hopefully he could pull it out when he got a chance to stop. He saw the speeder following him crest a dune behind him and hung a strong 180 to shoot back at them full speed. He set his racer to stop shortly after he jumped and as he passed by them he jumped off the racer and landed on the back of their open canopy speeder.

"You really thought you could catch me in this piece of crap?" Anakin jested, Dodging a sloppy blaster shot. "This is the kind of thing I'd strip for raw material, nothing here would even make it within 100 feet of being used in one of my projects." That seemed to piss one of them off more than the rest. 'Well I guess it's his baby then, definitely takes after its father, Ugly as an eopie.'

"You should come quietly, we know you found something out there, must be good to pay that much for it. Tell us where it is or else," one of the thugs tried and failed to be intimidating. It's hard to be intimidating when you are an alien race that's half a meter tall though and Anakin pitied him his plight.

"Yeah, We'll drag it out of you nice and slow, though it would have been easier if you had just let us follow you instead." Pitched in another bright one.

"You guys are really stupid, you know that?" Anakin shrugged putting a deep line across one of their necks with his sword. "It's not like I was headed right there and my house is already mapped, not that it matters and besides you would have followed me through a dozen traps set up to kill tails like you so I can get home or to whatever destination I have clean of any eyes. I just wanted to have a chat with one of you to find out who thinks I rate such scrutiny." Anakin added, slicing another one's head clean off.

By now, the remaining two, the driver and the one who had kindly provided some free dexterity training by shooting at him were getting mighty nervous. They looked at each other, nodded and then at the same time, the shooter shot at him again and the driver stopped the vehicle and threw his hands up saying he'd talk. The shooter looked at the driver incredulous at the betrayal before losing his head in his distraction.

"Well let's have it, Who thinks I'm so interesting?" Anakin probed, whipping his sword through the air to rest on the man's collarbone.

" ..wait-wait, I'll tell you, I'll talk!" He babbled out only earning himself a steady trickle of blood as the sword nicked his shoulder, getting closer to his neck. "It was a really big Trandoshan in red armor with a black cloak. He's about two and a third meters tall. He must have weighed three hundred fifty pounds, ripped as you can fit on a frame like that. Spoke in a gravelly voice with the usual periodic lisp of their kind, not sure if his name will mean much as I suppose it could be fake, he called himself Vesuchi, bit odd to be a real name. He said you had found something that he might be interested in." The man garbled out, barely intelligible. "We got the call right before you left the government building, barely had time to stick a tracker on your racer." We watch that building with long range surveillance equipment, but your conversation was too low to be sure of and you wrote things down several times. We only caught the payment handover and something bout a canyon, and didn't tell anyone anything. Please let me go!" The man squealed like a pig with minimal prompting, no way that he could be trusted to keep Anakin secrets if he couldn't keep his own employer's under light intimidation. Anakin lopped off his head with a swift stroke. Anakin wasn't completely trusting even with his own droids who were PROGRAMMED for loyalty (A group of slicers had taken stuff from some of his droid's memory banks several times before he got the message that even they aren't infallible he had of course stormed their hidey hole and destroyed all the stolen schematics on his next podracer before they could sell them, not to mention destroying the slicers themselves). That sentients could and probably would betray you given enough incentive was a given. 'If it is important, it's Important to keep it to yourself.' Anakin thought. 'Wow I'm a paranoid bastard.' He mentally added after reviewing his longtime policy on sensitive information security. Now that he wasn't being followed, he seeked out the tracker before detaching it and leaving it in the sand, performing a system scan on the way back for any digital uploads that may have occurred in the time between the last check and now. The scan came back negative and he gunned it the rest of the way home, secure in the knowledge he wasn't being tracked anymore. He made a note to go and look at the speeder later to see if it was even worth salvaging. He could probably get some decent metal out of the engines and the control computers at the very least.


	3. Chapter 3

**-Chapter 3-**

Vesuchi... Vesuchi…. Where have I heard that name? Anakin plopped himself on his couch and thumbed the news stream on. It was a report on the currently raging Clone wars.

"Everything is under control" Stated one of the higher ranking Senators, though it seemed that he was worse for wear. The obviously forced smile that politicians reserve for especially bloodthirsty paparazzi displayed prominently on his face. 'Guess he didn't seek this interview out then,' Anakin supposed. Flipping through the channels a bit to try and find something more relevant to his part of the galaxy he came across something. 'Ah! Here we go!' Something a little closer to home had caught Anakin's eye.

"Renowned Pirate and Treasure Hunter Vesuchi to travel Hutt space in search of hidden relics. All the way from Trandosha! Let's hear what he has to say, folks!" Anakin rubbed his eyes and peered at the name displayed on screen. 'Surely it's not this simple,' Anakin thought. 'I mean not a lot of people get Holonet this far away from the core as receptors need to be more powerful the farther out you get (and thus exponentially more expensive), and I can count the number of stable connections on Tatooine on two hands, but broadcasting the span of your illicit journeys on the Holonet in what reminds me of a cheesy 'Space Opera', and then giving a corresponding name to what amounted to your hit men? Ego much? Wasn't this already done by some other people? Well, I'll deal with him later, for now I have to draw up the plans for the new race track." Anakin said, mostly to himself. After giving the building of a new racing venue as a reason for purchasing that piece of land, he had mulled it over on the drive home and decided that it wasn't a half bad idea. It wouldn't cut into other proprietor's profits, as races nearly always sold out no matter the pricing, and would net a pretty penny. It was just how things worked on Tatooine. People came for the anonymity and stayed for the podracing. Plus he, as the owner of the track, laid claim to any wrecked podracers of which there could be hulks from as many as half of the entrants so he would get to see the technology that was usually so jealously guarded and be able to incorporate pieces of it into his own design. Well the good pieces anyways, his own personal technology was more advanced in nearly all ways. Not that he couldn't steal podracers and take them apart. He had done that many times in his early days. It was not an uncommon sight on Tatooine to see a stolen podracer tearing down a street with a dozen swoops racing after it full of armed guards. All the smart pilots locked up their racers in lairs like his own and posted guards, even so many of them still got nicked race day to DQ the participant. 'If it's not locked down and guarded, it's not yours.' the saying went with regard to podracers, well ultimately possessions in general. Especially when there wasn't really a police force to press any semblance of charges with. You handed whatever imitation of 'law' officials that 'went after you' a nova crystal and they turned right around and went straight to the bar to 'forget about you'. Or you killed them, whatever works out for the setting.

"Alright K7, Here are the plans, I want your platoon out there putting up the boxes there, there and there around the clock. Use the quarried sandstone for the stands and hold off on the roofing, I have a shipment of durable woods and metals incoming to make the more luxurious seating and the betting stalls. It should be here in a week. I want all 3 of the sections of seating set up before then, and be at least halfway done with the tunneling needed for the track's jaunts between canyons. The lighting will arrive in about a month, it's from the inner core worlds so it's pretty far away. That will be set up around the track to show the way. Everything needs to be ready for light installation at that point, and from there we will only need to raise both the contestant and visitor hangars and the landing pads for off-world guests." Anakin looked at the plans again, seeing the lack of parking space "We can also put a port in Mos Espa and Mos Eisley and ferry visitors to and from their vehicles if they park there and charge extra for local parking, then detain any spectator's vehicles parking outside of regulated parking. I'll reserve VIP spots for the important people and for a few off-world dignitaries that may or may not be interested." Anakin stopped for the droid to speak. "Yes Baron Skywalker," it rattled off in crude but accurate Basic. Satisfied, Anakin let the droid walk off with it's group of fifty Knight class Worker-Warrior droids. These were his foot soldiers and the main kind of metal muscle that he employed in his service that were not Astromechs, A creation all his own. He had about 200 of them active at all times most of which patrolled and protected him and his estate, and another 3000 powered down and in storage under his estate that could be up and shooting in under a minute. The public only knew about the 200, though there was speculation on the information market and among spies that thought they were hot shit that he had as many as 500 tucked away because he had deployed extra on multiple occasions for various operations and 'hostile takeovers' of the businesses his rivals used to own. They also knew that his droids were a notch above standard, or more. Anakin knew for a fact that Jabba only had an average of 400 bounty hunters in his employ and that he detested arming droids, seeing them as a potential liability. He wasn't wrong they usually were, unless they are designed by a tech whiz to be better than the average human soldier. Unsaid was the fact that Jabba could rally up to an additional 400 mercs if needed over a period of 5 days with them flocking to his rally points in ones and twos spread out through that period. Speculation was rampant over who had the better army, though they had a treaty not to actually find out that included a clause for those under their protection to a certain extent. Being graced by Jabba's or Skywalker's protection usually meant you were safe, unless you did something really stupid and the other negotiated for your head. Several people had had their protection retracted by both Jabba and Anakin but there was always a reason and it was always because they were dicking around with things they shouldn't. They never lasted long afterwards.

Aside from heavier warrior and battle styled droids, Anakin also maintained a large quantity of higher functioning droids that could perform the roles of Diplomats, Commanders, Businessmen, Scientists, and other highly educated subjects, some of which either Anakin would have trouble with and others that his time would be wasted on. He had a veritable hoard of astromechs and other mechanic type doids tinkering away with his fleet of podracers and other things that go vroom while methodically documenting the processes. They were accompanied by just about every other type of droid imaginable, and at least one of every type of droid on the recent market and many off.

The 'Crown Jewel" of his collection was definitely his Commander Droid Model: Majordomo. It was a heavily modified General Droid stolen intact (read: Kidnapped) from a Separatist battlefield, with entirely new software coded from scratch in an intentionally over complicated language of his own invention. Nobody was going to decode it's software and the only copy of its programming was in Anakin's head, all his notes had been memorized and methodically destroyed. It controlled his whole operation and did so better than any prominent CEO one could name. Truly a technological masterpiece, if not a disturbingly prominent example of how droids were more efficient than biological beings in many instances including killing. CM-MD was one of the main examples Jabba referenced when deciding never to arm droids.

Several attempts to steal his Majordomo had failed, not because of intervention of anyone/anything else but because the droid itself had picked up the entire assault speeder and thrown it over the fence into the dunes outside the protective force fields that kept the sands at bay and the moisture in, blowing them up as its fuel tank was compromised in the resulting crash. Thieves on foot never got past his fences in the first place, anything less than heavy armor plating was swiss cheese within a mile so he wouldn't know how the droid dealt with that. The only two documented incursions were paramilitary from what he could tell, though he could never tell if they were Republic agents, a humanoid Seppie strike team or whatever other agency they hailed from, not that he cared, they paid with their lives for trying to take his toys and had helped discourage anyone else from trying, well after the second group that actually got past his walls.

'So the young Baron Skywalker found something good out in the desert, you said?' Jabba was looking at a holocall with a projection of Vesuchi's cloaked form. The hood was pulled back, and the reptilian traits his species had showed even through the bad connection that the holonet usually had this far out. "I'll tell you right now, even if Skywalker found the deed to Tatooine itself, it's not worth getting involved with Skywalker in any form other than as a business partner. If you are trying to muscle in on his claim, I'll give you some advice free of charge, Don't. He killed the entire squad of assassins I set on him after him before this treaty saved my neck. There were twenty of them. His military grade droids stood by while he dismantled the entire group up close and personal. He didn't even turn on the vibrosword he fought with, the kid just used the blade as it was, that was three years ago when he was seventeen. The kid is a monster, always has been. But, that is before you even take into account his private droid army. I have it on good authority that the numbers projected on the information market are a shadow of the true figure, but I couldn't put a specific figure to it myself. His compound has more security than any deity's palace and he is about as beloved as one can get on this shitty planet. His wealth is substantial, even when held next to old money like that of many of the Hutt Clans. You need to turn this holo call off, forget my number and rethink your vacation plans, Trandoshan." Jabba sighed, or at least did the species equivalent as far as a Hutt could manage. This idiot was going to get himself killed trying to steal from Skywalker. That reservoir the boy had found was assuredly priceless if managed correctly, and he had a half mind to approach the boy to work out a deal. It was worthless if the figure of the total amount was made public knowledge, but the boy was smart enough to know that much at least. If it was all released the value of water would drop catastrophically, already Jabba was quietly converting his water reserves into Nova Crystals, Ryll and other forms of concentrated value under the guise of raising money for an offworld purchase where water wouldn't cut it. He thought back to the time he had first met the kid's inner beast fondly.

-Flashack-

"Sir, there is someone here to see you, It's that kid Skywalker, Says he is here for his winnings from the Boonta Eve Classic, Should I let him in?" Jabba's Majordomo whispered into his ear. "Yeah, right away." He responded with a deep chuckle. The Twi'lek left then returned after a minute with a tall teenager escorted by two tall military droids acting bodyguard. 'Kid's smart to bring those thugs into this shithole, I'd have done the same, after all we are all enemies around here, especially with his rising popularity, he could think I'd take the chance to off future competition. Or that one of my thugs would get trigger happy for whatever perceived slight.' Jabba put on his most gruesome smile, something to put off the weak minded of course, he'd never smile like this in private. This was a show, a 'Rite Of Passage' If you will. Finding out if the new kid on the block was worth keeping around. Jabba remembered his own fondly. One of the droids was carrying a box and the other had a rifle. The one carrying the box appeared unarmed, but Jabba severely doubted it, it would be little more than a donation of scrap metal if things went south in the middle of a hostile environment. No it definitely had weapons... somewhere.

"Hey old guy," Anakin started. "You stole my collections droid. I put a lot of work into that one." The kid, no more than fourteen at this point looked only the obligatory amount of disappointed needed to maintain the charade of ignorance as to the true meaning of this encounter though, he must have known what was going down here, and when Jabba looked back on this moment, he knew that Skywalker was definitely in on the 'secret'. The boy had come well armed for it too. Long ago Jabba has discounted the notion of the boy being an idiot from the dozen or so times they had talked at races or even in this very spot on other occasions, The kid was almost too smart. The boy had deliberately stood on his trapdoor, as if daring him to attempt to feed him to his 'pet.' Jabba stayed his hand though. The insult wasn't really that bad and deep down Jabba knew the kid would kill his rancor with little issue then proceed to fuck up his entourage. He had seen the kid fight several times in the past. In fact he was present for Watto's execution and had sent the kid on multiple assassination jobs personally, some far above the skill level he thought the kid was at just to mess with him and then the kid returned and tossed the head at him and refused payment saying 'Mark that one down in your file'. The kid was ready for this trial, Jabba just hoped he was right and the kid didn't take it the wrong way.

"I don't know what happened to your droid, someone else must have taken it after it left my palace" It was a lie and a bad one at that. The kid made droids too good to not have a locator beacon, in fact he had lost two men trying to bring the thing down, but out of respect for the kid he hadn't messed with it too much, instead just tossing the thing in a box for after his ascension trial. "Ask anyone" he said, his entourage nodded as they were prompted, only seeming to make the kid visibly madder. The kid went for his sword, that was the signal for the trial to start. Originally he was going to send five after the kid, but when he came in packing that much heat AND two bodyguard droids, he had discretely upped it to twenty. The volunteers stood up and shot at the kid, but were surprised when the kid rolled out of the way and started throwing knives into their companion's heads, taking out five before they could get cover. The kid then ran at one of them and slashed their head off, not bothering to switch on the vibrations that gave the vibrosword its name and its exceptional cutting ability. He cut through the armor protecting the thug from such strikes, showcasing either monstrous strength or an uncanny ability to spot weaknesses in solid tempered metal. Probably both knowing Skywalker. His droids just stood there and watched. 'They aren't going to help him? Well it's too late to call off the extra people and it's not like he would let them go after shooting at him. No this is it right here. His Test.' Anakin was tearing through his men, only the ones indicated, mind you, while the rest had ran clear of the melee. As the last one fell, Jabba started clapping.

"Well done, Skywalker, You have ascended to the peerage of the Lords of Tatooine. By my right as an upper council member I grant you the title of Baron Skywalker, Lord of the Blasted Lands. Until now you have served many masters as a free agent, now we tie you to your own lands as one of our own. Long may you rule." Jabba said, before the last sentence was repeated by the rest of the group. A mere formality, and it was doubtful that anyone local outside of his friendly acquaintances and other nobles who would expect the same would actually call him by that name day to day. It was more likely that people would call him that with regard to podracing, or when he traveled for any official events off-world, as there may be. Being of the peerage, he now had licence to raise an army bigger than one hundred soldiers and own a far greater number of businesses and more land. Jabba had drawn up the documents granting him the Blasted Lands a few weeks ago 'In hindsight maybe that was what tipped him off, there are plenty of people who watch for stuff like that, one of them must have sold him the info.' Jabba had thought with an internal curse at his carelessness. That kind of thing got people killed in the wrong situation. Oh well nothing that can be done

"If you would honor me by allowing me to be the first to congratulate you and present you with a gift in goodwill." Jabba motioned for his Majordomo to present Skywalker, no Baron Skywalker with the gift. It was a statue carved from one of the biggest krayt dragon pearls that Jabba himself had ever seen. He had the pearl shipped to Alderaan itself to have a skilled craftsman carve a krayt dragon into it. It was a princely gift.

"I thank you for the ascension trial, as well as the gift, but I still don't see my payment for winning your race. I don't win the things for you for free you know! It's not like you are unable to pay me" he said, looking around at the finery in the room while saying the last part. "Thought you'd pull a fast one on me by pulling the wool over my eyes with an Ascension trial, huh? That'll be 230,000 Nova Crystals between the winnings and my take from bets people placed on me. I keep track."

Jabba had a large vein pulsing on his forehead. The brat wanted it all and to eat it too, huh! 'well here you go you little ungrateful shit' Jabba thought. In his rage he pushed the release on the trapdoor and the last thing he saw of Skywalker before he disappeared into the rancor pit was a shit eating grin.

"K7, keep him at blaster point, I'll be right back" was heard from the inside of the pit, as well as the howling of a wounded monster. Jabba had made a big mistake in his rage and his pet wouldn't live to regret it.


	4. Chapter 4

**-Chapter 4-**

"Wow all that happened?" Asked Vesuchi, a bit shocked at the kid taking on 20 people for his rite of Ascension. 'Kid's got grit I'll say that much' Vesuchi didn't know the half of it.

"Yeah and he ended up going to war with me with his force of 100 droids. In hindsight I think HE staged the whole thing to get a legitimate excuse that wouldn't be scoffed at just to show the rest of us who the big kid on the block is. Or at least get a measure of respect for his military might." Jabba said "You are going to owe me for this next part, Rare info, y'see"

"All ears, I'll pay you a favor. Within reason, you know." Responded Vesuchi, he was hooked on the story "of course I'm not stopping and giving you a favor every time you stop and try to tack another one on so this is it for the whole story.

"Relax I'm not like that, do you really think so little of me?" Pouted Jabba cutely, well as cutely as a thousand pound plus slug could.

"No comment" Replied Vesuchi, burning the image from his mind.

"Suffice to say, he demolished all of us. Wiped out half of our forces while his droids could just be put back together by his crack team of mechanics. It got so bad that the rest of the council beseeched me to put an end to it, I offered him terms for a truce and he grabbed them. More land, higher limits on personnel, and peace to him and those under his protection, basically all those privileges reserved for the Upper House. He grabbed it with both hands and a smile as if that was what he was going for the whole time. He is a demon not only because his personal power is immense, but because his forces don't end with a blaster bolt to the head, he crushes the foe, drags the scrap from the parts of his army that got destroyed and has them good as the new before the sun rises the next day. Not to mention his baseline droids are twice as good as any baseline organic troop you can think of. Of course there are exceptions, but he has exceptions too and more of them." Jabba said, a hint of respect entering his voice momentarily. "As for my favor, Stay off Tatooine, same goes for any of your agents or employees, good day." Jabba hung up, tired of dealing with the little troublemaking movie star. He wasn't even a true pirate, just someone riding on the coattails of others, having them killed and claiming their deeds, then bullshitting it all on the big screen. Piece of shit. Now time to collect from Skywalker.

"Fortuna, Get me Baron Skywalker!" He yelled at his Majordomo.

"Right away sir" The Twi'Lek replied, rushing to the console.

A dull yellow light blared in his sitting room. Someone was calling his secure channel. Few had that number, Fewer would actually call him. "60 Nova says it's Jabba" he said, betting the wages of a laborer for an entire week in one go. Though it was obviously in jest as he was betting with himself. "Sucker's Bet" Said a voice from the corner. Skywalker turned, pulling out a blaster "Who are you, and how did you get in here?"

"Relax kid, I was Invited here by Jabba to help you with your… Wet Project. He gave me one of the passes you left with him for parties, now pick up the damn call, he's not a patient man." The man said "Oh and my name is Dr. Rudo, Hydrologist, I'm a professor on Alderaan and the moment Jabba heard of your... discovery he sent for me. I took an experimental craft to get here so fast, might have blown up but I guess we got lucky." A slightly crazy look entered Rudo's eye as he touched on his potential death in the name of speed.

"Well aged shit, let's see what the old man wants." Skywalker said, making sure not to use the man's prefix or even his name, if the esteemed doctor wanted him to acknowledge that, he could use his own title, not 'Kid' "And the name is Baron Skywalker to you."

Rudo looked angry, but Anakin didn't care, he received the message and dipped his head in acknowledgement of Jabba and listened to what the slug wanted.

"Hey Kid you owe me!" Jabba opened with.

"Is that so? You sent me a disrespectful old bag of bones, how is that worth compensation? I'm pretty sure he wouldn't even be worth half a nova crystal as a slave." Anakin commented, sending shivers down Rudo's neck.

"Lots of people would die to get their hands on that water" Jabba said, trailing off in an implied threat. "And I just happened to know where it is and have taken steps to keep people off you back. You beat me to the claiming, but all it would take is a few words to the right people and you got a war raging through your turf, something that would be a minor inconvenience with your muscle, but that could leave you vulnerable on other fronts." Said Jabba with his 'Business' smile on his fat face.

"You gotta work on your negotiation. If I release all that water, water becomes worthless, and guess who's palace is in a PRIME spot for flooding…" Skywalker trailed off in an imitation of Jabba's earlier tone, though it was obvious exactly who's residence he was talking about. "In fact i'd say you are looking at a bit more than mild water damage, more like needing to evolve gills on that lard ass of yours to be able to so much as collect the mail." This game they played every time they negotiated was really fun.

Jabba's eyes widened, clearly he had not thought of that part. After all, he'd need at least two generations to force an evolution in the hutt race for gills. The palace would have to be abandoned and he himself couldn't use it anymore, leaving it to his grandkids or farther. "Come now let's be reasonable, You wouldn't condemn the towns full of scum and villainy to drown in the most precious resource on this planet. Would you?"

"Well of course I would. Me and my droids are high and dry on the Blasted Lands Plateau. We could set up beach chairs and make milkshakes. I even have a nice bottle of wine I'm setting aside for the occasion." Said Anakin. "Enough with the games, Let's get to the heart, What do you want? Or rather how much do you want?"

"A million gallons, with a guarantee that you won't flood the land till its sold or it's been a month whichever is earlier. Then a mutual non disclosure agreement. Oh and you can keep Rody… ruby whatever his name is. I have no use for a Hydrologist. I just thought you'd want to test the water as its been sitting down there for so long." Jabba said

"Fine, prepare a place for me to offload the water. I'll have an escort of droids take care of it in a few of my bulk transports."Anakin replied.

"I'll have my Majordomo contact yours" Jabba confirmed before hanging up.

'Well at least the man knows what he wants and what he can get away with. He'll probably sell it to our enemies and then laugh at them when it's made worthless. Kind of like what I'll be doing, really...'

Anakin aimed his blaster "I have no use for sentients on my staff, especially rude pieces of shit who think their so fucking important, seriously the water is going to be filtered before anyone drinks it anyways." Rudo dropped like a bag of shit, splattered all over the ground and opposite wall, also like a bag of shit. "Have a droid clean this mess up, CM-MD and be alert for Fortuna's call. I want this taken care of immediately so he is out of my hair. Prepare a similar tank on the compound, except one up him and make it two million gallons.

After a bit of introspection, Anakin listed off the other things he wanted done to his skilled Majordomo "I want an indoor swimming pool, I have heard that those are all the rage in the core worlds." Anakin thought a moment then added "...and make sure you order more grass seed, flower bulbs, several forests worth of fruit tree saplings and one hundred tons of highest grade topsoil. You can have them steal that last bit from an Agriworld. We will be changing the Blasted Lands into the most beautiful region on Tatooine. Send a droid to buy all the higher elevation property on Tatooine, everything that wouldn't be flooded should we release the water, not that there is much that would be untouched." A bit more hesitation ensued, then Anakin pulled the trigger on the most obvious play of all. "Get my usual water brokers on the phone, boy do I have a deal for them," Anakin added, eager to get back at the fuckers for skinning him alive all these years.

"At once, my Baron" The Majordomo droid said before scurrying off to make the arrangements.


	5. Chapter 5

**-Chapter 5-**

Anakin took his entourage on a slow flyby of his new racetrack in a glass domed luxury speeder. He was accompanied by everyone who was anyone in the financial side of the Tatooine racing scene, as well as many wealthy off world hedge fund types come to get in on the ground floor. They were staking out the best sets of garage bays, the best box seat sections and the best landing bays, readying to submit reduced rate down payments for the first two seasons. Anakin had no need for the cut of the profit he would be forking over, he wanted them to be the ones who's wallets were tied to attendance in his stadium. If he could lease most of the utilities and seating sections, he could let them worry about filling them up for the first two seasons and that meant that he wouldn't have to put in any of his own time marketing along the way. By that time he could simply let word of mouth fill them up. He would need all the time he could get to prepare himself and his podracer for the Coruscant Maze. He was expecting it to take him at least three months to design and make a podracer of adequate power. He wouldn't be half-assing it either. Just a week ago he had sent off world twenty of his freighters all bound for different manufacturing star systems to pick up the best parts that money can buy as well as tons of all kinds of raw metals that he could cast his own with. This could be his 'big break' in the podracing world and he wasn't about to fuck it up.

The buzzing of the financial types was almost unbearable, but he had called them here so if he went off on them it would look extra poorly on him. One of them was giving him a sideways glare, and he knew exactly what it was for. The owner of those beady eyes was none other than Bellamere Vos. The man, an old scarred Togruta from Shili, was encased in far too expensive robes, even for his position. He was fairly high up in their planetary government and as crooked as a crowbar if Anakin recalled correctly. All types of corruption passed through his fingers and stuffed his wallet. Nothing that Tatooine didn't easily put to shame in depravity, but Shili just had so much more potential for this thing as it was a much more wealthy planet in the first place.

Vos and Anakin went way back as rivals in the Podracer financial scene, having met three years ago, before he was a Baron. Anakin had outbid Vos for the only set of garages anywhere near the Vineyard Classic, meaning that they sold out literally every race and he could charge whatever he wanted. Vos had no idea that they would be so profitable so he dropped at like a million NCs, thinking he had successfully upbid Anakin into ruin and planned on building another set nearby just to rub it in his face. He might have been right about financial ruin if it was any ordinary hangar or if Anakin was any ordinary citizen, but directly before the auction, Anakin had secured 'permits' to prevent other people from building new structures or re-purposing and or selling existing ones within 500 miles of the garage without his say so. This included the entire racetrack and all buildings in the area. Sure it cost him another 1 million in bribe money to Jabba, but that was one of his biggest earners, and had made him the most enemies. Anakin earned about five million off that sucker since, and another couple million out of each of the auxiliary garages he put up nearby. Needless to say Anakin was a BIG fan of the Vineyard Classic while Vos was… not.

Vos's glare abated a bit as he saw the datapad that Anakin handed him. "Consider this a peace offering." Displayed was a five year contract for the general management of the entire track. "I know you have tons of skill with shit like this, so get out of your bullshit government job bowing and scraping for that old bitch Aura Li (*cough* Orally *cough*) and work for me" The figures displayed were appropriate for the Togrutan's skill and experience level, which was considerable, but the highlight was inside info on all fixed races, which was where all the REAL cheese was made on racetracks. Anakin had never participated in a fixed race in his life, so they became rarer when he came onto the scene, but the implication that they would be coming back brought NC signs to Vos's eyes. Vos smiled a gruesome smile. "I'll see you next month, your complimentary suite will be on my compound and all planetary transportation and goons will be provided."

When they touched down in one of the landing pads everyone rushed over to the tables to get a piece of the cash, truthfully ALL the property was worth leasing at the prices it was going for, so it was just a question of who could grab the most money off the tables before someone else got to it. Anakin smirked as he saw his necessary future marketing time change from months to minutes in seconds before his eyes.

"Thank you all for coming, please line up across the wall and my droids will come to you to take your payments and distribute articles of lease. You can begin moving in administrative staff in as early as the first of the next standard month."

Anakin left with Vos trailing after him. "So did you plan that job offer?" Vos asked. "Or was it spur of the moment?"

"Well if you didn't come I certainly wouldn't have hired you. But yeah it was planned for at least two weeks," Anakin said. The notifications had gone out a week ago, and Vos took note of that as he slowly nodded "So you really want to hit square one again?" Vos asked. Anakin gave him a look that said 'what do you think?' eliciting a chuckle from the taller Togruta that shook his grizzled montrals. "Vos, get some local clothes, those will be threads in a week."

On the flight back to his Mos Espa compound he and Vos talked about the upcoming racetrack. "It should be finished within the month, my Knights have been working around the clock in force for over a month already and ten of them can usually put up a building in a few days provided that the materials and tools are arrayed nearby. You won't have to do anything related to construction, I know that's not on your resume" Anakin said that last bit a bit demeaningly, Trying to get a rise. "Why I never! I'll have you know that I have overseen PLENTY of construction projects in my day why there was that time on Thyferra where I had to make sure the Bacta Refinery we were clashing over was up and running on my dime before you got there or you would have snatched it from under those 'poor helpless farmers' for a pittance!" Anakin obviously succeeded. Vos was so predictably co nfrontational, he'd have to post security on him to keep him from making a stupid mistake and starting a fight with… well anyone on this rock. A snort quieted Vos as he turned red, embarrassed to fall for Anakin's old tricks. "Piece of shit" he said under his breath. Loud enough for Anakin to hear, but not loud enough to be called out on in any meaningful way. Smug bastard.

"There it is: The Skywalker Estate!" Anakin said "The crown jewel of my lands, a bit farther, over the edge of that cliff in the distance is Mos Espa. I own the top of every plateau within this mountain range and much of the valleys.

"It's so… Green." Vos said, A little awed "You really aren't just some simple podracer."

"No, I'm a Tatooine Noble, if you were from here, you'd call me Baron or Lord, but let's dispense with any positive connotation of 'Nobility' It just means I'm rich, I'm a bad ass fighter and I'm on the council of Crime Lords that rules over this sector. You work for me now which offers you a lot of protection, but if you fuck up and start something, you can bet that Jabba will want your ass on principle, and if you give him an excuse, our treaty will force me to come to the table over removing your protection. I'LL get something, but it will be in exchange for your custody." Anakin Explained, leaving out Vos's implied low chances of leaving that custody alive.

Vos shivered a little, then decided to set aside a really fast ship with really good shields to dip out if needed. "Tatooine is a little bit more brutal that Shili" He pointed out "Hopefully I'll learn what I need to to survive here."

"You'll do fine" Anakin said, though he mentally put the Togrutan's chances at around 10% then set odds at 1/13 in favor of death and mentally took that bet, hoping for a win so he wouldn't have to hunt for another manager. The extra pretend NCs didn't hurt either.

Anakin pulled the speeder into his aboveground hangar and ordered a droid to show Vos around and put him in the green suite. The green suite was his best set of guest rooms. Typically reserved for important off-world dignitaries, Vos had actually already been a guest in the rooms multiple times before but it had been about a year since his Ex-Rival had visited.

"I don't care if/when you resign from your post on Shili, but don't let it get in the way of work." Anakin said then left the droid to drag Vos around, being extra 'Gentle' with the Togruta's arm so he wouldn't trip into anything. Like poles. That would be terrible.


	6. Chapter 6

**-Chapter 6-**

Over the next week Anakin and Vos caught up on the good old days, reminiscing story after story, and even learning of new ones that one attributed incorrectly to the other such was their hate. It all came out the day before Anakin was planning to release all the water.

Anakin's Holonet terminal lit up as he was getting up to grab another high end bottle of that sticky nutrient packed alcohol that was typically served as a staple with breakfast on Shili. He voice activated it and went about his business going to and searching through his wine cellar.

"Baron" A deep voice said in native Huttese. Jabba had some background noise and there was another person, his majordomo, in the picture. "What can I do for you Jabba?" Anakin asked, kind of ticked off. Here he was catching up with and turning an old rival into an old friend and Jabba had to stick his big ugly face into his holoprojectors. "I just wanted to let you know that I am through with all the water and you don't need to hold on any longer on my account." Anakin nodded, though he wasn't planning on doing so anyways. The deadline was tomorrow and he was going to let it rip as soon as he could. "Yep, when It's noon tomorrow at my place I'm going to hit the button. It should sink pretty much everything. And guess who calculated what won't be underground?" he asked Jabba with an innocent look that was expertly hiding a fuck you somewhere in between the laughter and the tears of joy at a plan well executed. Jabba didn't really have a response. He knew that Skywalker was buying up land, but he didn't understand the why and wherefore until now.

"Well played, I suppose there is nothing to do but congratulate the new owner of Tatooine, come tomorrow at least." Jabba took a VERY deep breath. "I know when I'm beaten, I doubt that I could beat you in a war, and certainly not before tomorrow. Despite the steps you have taken to control the info, I know you have thousands of your combat droids tucked away in your estate, far more than the council combined can muster combined, and far better. I doubt my best mercenary Boba could assassinate you quiet like without far too much luck to hope for. I will be folding my cards, but the rest of the Hutts will take this as a personal insult so I suggest you consider yourself warned. I own several small peaks, but if I simply sold them to you, it could be considered treason by my family and I would be ousted from my clan. You do however have my blessing to take them by military might after I have left, provided that they aren't snatched by the clans beforehand." Jabba got an emotional look in his fat eyes and he smacked his lips nervously. "By my right as a member of the Tatooine High Council of Lords, I consider this council disbanded in favor of upholding you as the sole ruler of Tatooine, May you reign long, Baron Skywalker." The connection cut out to a Jabba shouting orders to pack up his palace, leaving nothing behind. After conferring with his droid spies he confirmed that this was not a ruse and that Jabba was actually leaving. 'Good, one less fool to…' no he shouldn't even think of 'it' until 'it' happens, wouldn't want the surprise spoiled to anyone observing his thoughts. "Jabba alway was a bit sanctimonious about his precious council," Anakin whispered under his breath.

Vos looked up as Anakin returned, bringing another keg with him. After spiking it and refilling their tankards Anakin sat down and they resumed chatting, carrying on for a few more hours, until the topic shifted to Tatooine's hot dry climate.

"I can't say much, but there is a project of mine to change it for the better. It's not like we have an industry pouring pollution into the atmosphere, all that we need to fix this is water, and water we shall have." It was a bit cryptic for his tastes, but he wasn't the one that had his brain looped around so he didn't particularly care, On the contrary, the shade of crimson that the Togruta's face was turning was extremely satisfying. 'Have to do this whole cryptic sage thing more often, huh.' Anyways, morning is over, get out there and make me money!" Anakin said, shooing Vos towards a transport. It took a few minutes to get Vos underway but he was relieved to have his compound to himself once again. Anakin typed up an order for more of that fucking awesome Alcohol, Persica something, and sent it through the holonet directly to Shili.

Anakin pressed a button on his wrist gear, bring up an image of his Majordomo's faceplate "Are the droids in position for operation almost clean slate?" he asked it. After getting an affirmative he gave the order for 9pm standard, true nights on Tatooine were too rare to bother waiting for one and even if there was one not all the locations would be hit by it anyways, so he picked an arbitrary halfnight time.

Nine o'clock came and he wandered to the operation command room. Twenty video screens were set up, a few of them showing damage status of his droids and others showing armor cams. It was at 9:02 that he first blood began to flow. And flow it did. Anakin's droids were programmed to use any weapon they could get their hands on, but they always took after him after observing him use a sword. It's like they had a fetish for blood or something. With mechanical strength and a sword that could literally cut diamonds when vibrating the only thing they had to do was get up close to their victim. That was where Anakin came in. He had made these droids SPECIAL for this operation. Dropping a few thousand NCs per droid for Stygium crystals and other high tier electronic components, Anakin had installed fully integrated camo systems on their weapons and armor. Heat signatures? Gone. Visuals? Gone. Energy? Gone. Sure they were physically there but it didn't really matter to scanners and the only way to detect them would be to wave your arms around. There are easier ways to lose your arms. He had two hundred of them currently deployed, eight per location. Anakin watched as they systematically slaughtered the entourages of the other twenty five crime lords. He had called off the ones on Jabba since he had helped him out a lot in the past. Who was he kidding, it was because Jabba would owe him for sparing him, and once he heard about how it went down, he would actually pay up. Plus killing Hutts was simply nasty business. Both literally in that their guts were nasty smelling and because it didn't endear you to the Hutt Clans.

By now the droids were finishing up and were looting the compounds of all valuables with their backup squad. They had interrogated all the lords to find out the locations of their stashes as well as all the necessary codes to take over their offworld accounts and whatever ramshackle fleets they owned. Anakin had long been wealthier than all but jabba so he wasn't truly expecting much more than a few collectors weapons here and there, some stolen credits, a button of spice and precious metals and minerals. Plus Nova Crystals, but they seem like a drop in the bucket now. His droids then spread across the planet, putting down all the potential problems and installing premade shield domes around all the cities, ready to activate. These would keep people beholden to him.

Anakin had toyed with the idea of LITERALLY wiping the slate clean for a day or two, but then he realised that it's not truly a kingdom without living subjects, so he had those shields built. Anakin planned on conscripting everyone, forcibly educating them in agriculture and starting above water and below farms, fishing operations and all sorts of things that would NEVER have been possible in the desert. He knew that there would be holdouts, but as far as he was concerned, everyone on this rock, slave or not, would belong to him. Sure he would let them leave, but not before he had a chance to show them the new wonders of Tatooine.

As the ships full of his droids returned, bearing the riches of Tatooine, Anakin pressed The Button.


	7. Chapter 7

**-Chapter 7-**

One week later

"This is Cynthia Amena with the Republic News Network bringing an emergency broadcast to you live from Tatooine, Or so I've been told. I still think our pilot made a mistake with the navicomputer, as Tatooine was a Desert planet last time I checked. Technically I suppose it still qualifies as a desert planet for now as though the water cycle has started up again, there hasn't been any major rainfall yet due to its sluggish start. In my experience, typically desert worlds don't have massive, world spanning oceans with small continents and vast archipelagos. The "Islands" are mostly made out of rock, and my scientists tell me that the small ones used to be the peaks of the rock formations from the jundland wastes, and bigger ones were the plateaus locally known as the blasted lands. There is also a large mountain range with canyons full of rushing water otherwise untouched by the flooding. This was a prominent feature on the old map" The anchor took a breath and turned and looked out the large window that was behind her. It showed a large blue planet with small to medium sized sandy continents and a vast dark archipelago. "The locals are surprisingly quiet, but there is sentient life down there still, most of it concentrated in giant domes underwater where the major cities used to be, with a few signs coming from the largest of the continent-like islands. Let's call them the 'Blasted Islands' For now." The anchor was cut off by the copilot as a transmission came through.

"You are in restricted space, by the order of Baron Skywalker shut down your reactor and prepare to be boarded, you will not be asked again." An obviously droid voice patched through the intercom. It had come from a nearby destroyer class battleship, one of a few dozen blockading the planet. The transmission was picked up by the broadcast and there was silence across the galaxy as the breath of all listeners caught in their throat.

"Hello, Can you patch me through to Mr. Skywalker?" The anchor asked the droid, Truly the balls on media personnel had no limits and the droid ran through a random number generator in its program. It got the only number out of 1000 that did not ensure a tragic end in hellfire for the entire ship she was on. A warning shot was fired and they were again told to cut power and prepare to be boarded and searched before being taken to Baron Skywalker. Not seeing any other options, the pilot did as he was told.

"Sir, a ship has been caught trying to enter the system. It's markings are that of a RNN vessel. Its being dragged into one of our light destroyers as we speak. They want to see you, Sir" Anakin's majordomo had woken him up from a small nap. Obviously this ranked as 'Important enough that you will take sewer cleaning duty for a week or we are under attack' like was defined in his programming with regard to waking Anakin up from a nap, though he couldn't tell which the majordomo was referencing. Probably the second bit, by considering the presence of a non-native element in the system an 'attack.' Sly bastard. With a groan, Anakin threw on an armored robe and loaded himself up with weapons including a sword and several throwing knives. He grabbed a datapad and ran off to his opulent personal transport. "Put them in a conference room and turn the ship so the room's window faces the planet," He ordered the droids on duty in the destroyer. His transport tore through the atmosphere as a steady clip eager to say hi to the galaxy.

Cynthia shivered as she was taken from her ship and led through the larger destroyer to some unknown destination. As soon as they had been dragged into the ship's docking bay, the entire crew was captured, booked and thrown into individual holding cells in the destroyer's belly. They couldn't talk to one another, and she knew that she was close to panicking. A droid had come in not ten minutes later, unceremoniously grabbed her and marched her down the hallway to an unknown destination. As it turns out, they had searched her ship and found her broadcasting equipment and it was set up in the conference room around her. Droids manned it, obviously the positions not rating her crew. That stung but she shook it off. She was marched over to an expensive looking chair set in front of a camera and mounted microphone and told not to get up. Another chair was brought into the room, just as ornate as the first and it was placed across from her. Droids stood beside her, behind her, behind that and pretty much everywhere else. She really didn't like her chances of making a run for it and her panic levels were rising.

Before she broke down completely, the door opened. Cynthia looked over and saw a really tall human garbed in battle regalia. His eyes were bloodshot and the weight of nations visibly slumped his shoulders. He looked like he had made some hard decisions lately. He sat down, removing his sword and holding it in his lap. He gave the droids a signal and simply said "Your are on."

Cynthia sputtered, she wasn't prepared for an interview, but her years of experience kicked in and she got right down to the meat of the matter.

"This is Cynthia Amena with the Republic News Network, I'd like to know why you had us brought aboard your destroyer in such a manner?" she asked, hoping to get a rise, or maybe even a denial.

"Well, you were trespassing in MY system, so I'll bring you wherever I want to." The man said. "The galaxy may or may not know me, but I am minorly famous for my podracing skill. The real thing I am famous for though, is my criminal empire." He said, getting a small gasp out of Cynthia.

"You are saying that you are a criminal? Just like that?" She fished.

"Well morally, of course! Legally? Well... Murder, Blackmail, Extortion, Arms Dealing, Kidnapping, Piracy, Sponsoring Terrorists, Larceny, Burglary, Political Assassination, Regular Assassination, Bounty Hunting and Repo, Harboring Fugitives from Justice... I have done all these things, worse and more, and on Tatooine, I and anyone else who does so, can do so with impunity under the 'laws' of the old High Council." Anakin Explained.

"Thats… certainly not legal on most worlds." Cynthia commented, though she could tell that this conversation was being taken away from her by the charismatic rogue.

"While I was perfectly fine with the state of laws previously" Anakin said. "I found a resource that held infinite sway over the population of Tatooine at the time."

"What resource is that?

"Why water, of course, and in jaw dropping amounts, to a degree that would make it worthless." Anakin said

Cynthia nodded, beginning to understand what happened. "So you sold it off quietly for a time and amassed money for a military takeover"

"Yes, good deduction. And then I assassinated all my military rivals, though I have had the forces to do that for a LONG time, and pulled the plug, leaking the world's hidden water back to the surface. Not to worry, I shielded the population centers, though the odd moisture farmer will have been an unfortunate casualty. They matter little as that profession is obsolete anyways."

"So, What happens now?" Asked Cynthia. "Are you going to keep me prisoner?

"Keep you prisoner? Why would I do that? I'm a monster, not politically suicidal! No you and your crew are headed back to the core to as a message to the public as well as to drop off some documents to the Senate and the Jedi council. Your top quality transmission equipment might have made it to the core under normal circumstances, but not with the ECM that I am flooding this system with. Unfortunately I won't be able to bring you to the surface but the packet I am sending with you includes pictures and a current map." Anakin said. "Your crew should be waiting for you on your ship. My droids will get you and your crew sorted back onto your ship and bring your stuff with you. I'm glad we had this chat, Cynthia, my dear." Anakin kissed her deeply on the lips to her shock. The cameras were shut off AFTER the fact but she wouldn't find out that bit. The production director was a comedian, or so he thought.


	8. Chapter 8

**-Chapter 8-**

 **I've done my best with timeline continuity, but i'm 99% I fucked up somewhere, Use your best judgement**

Flashbacks

Age Eight

Anakin ran, dodging people and other obstacles in his path. He wasn't afraid to admit it, In that moment he almost gave up podracing for good. Anakin had just turned eight and was on his way to the garage he kept his racer in for the Boonta Eve Classic, one of the biggest races of the year. He had gotten jumped by two or three of Sebulba's thugs and was bleeding heavily. His arms and core had numerous slashes and puncture wounds. Now Anakin did not fear death, no in fact he reveled in it! What could be more exhilarating than flirting with it every time he got in his cockpit, every time a merchant thought he was soft and attempted to refuse him his paid for goods? Every time he went outdoors? His entire life was excitement, or so he thought. Now crawling through this dark alley, holding his guts in with one hand, wiping the nonexistent tears of a harder man with the other, he realised the truth. He had thought himself invincible and that is what allowed his thrill of doing risky things. Anakin shook his head and decided that he was going to train, to accumulate power. Personal power, political power, military power, The things that built empires. He was going to become so powerful that he could stop people from dying and choose who explored the afterlife first with a flick of his finger. Only then could walking alongside his old friend death be an offhand thrill! He coughed and spat out a big glob of blood before breaking down a side door and bringing light to his hands, closing up his wounds, though he knew the pain would heighten and stay for weeks to come. Anakin set his jaw in a firm scowl. Who was he kidding, he had a race to win!

Age Nine

Anakin stood at a workbench. He had appropriated Watto's scrap shop and turned it into his own personal workshop at the time. He left the sign the same as he enjoyed chatting with offworlders and learning of their stories then helping them be on their way, but the locals knew to stay away. Anakin had already put a few low end bounty hunters in graves out back when they tried to take him out so their masters, some of Watto's old 'friends,' so they could wrest control of the shop out of his hands. A pinched or severed brain vessel and they went down for good in three seconds flat. One of them he drowned alive in molten glass and had in a wall display covered by a panel that could be opened in order to intimidate tough customers. Anakin was nine now, and quite tall for his age, having the money to import proper nutrition for his age and species as well as hire specialized medical professionals to keep him in top form for podracing… and combat. Then he saw her, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He recognized her from his recent vacation to Naboo, though he never met her in person. He had seen her giving an impassioned speech to a crowd from afar and her words entranced even him. Well, maybe it was her boobs... but come on, he was a growing boy! The young Queen of Naboo was here in Anakin's shop. The chances? Literally astronomical. "To what do I owe the honor great Queen Amidala?" he asked, flirting it up a bit. She looked at him in shock, not expecting to be recognized this far out of the way. Her bearded escort drew a long metal cylinder and jumped forward, likely sensing his force presence and jumping to conclusions. He was surprised when Anakin pressed a button and he was suspended in the air by an internal force field. His weapon was taken from him and he was looking eye to eye with the boy who now stood on the counter. Anakin slipped into his mind, after all reading minds was all power and will so it was a song for Anakin on literally anybody. A distasteful practice to be sure, but not the most vile thing he had done, to be even surer. He discerned their purpose and pulled out the hyperdrive. "Get out, then get off my planet. Tell the order to never come back." Anakin already thought of Tatooine as his planet at this point. In his mind, it truly was only a matter of time. Anakin's first lightsaber of many to come. Jedi were damn persistent.

Age Ten

Anakin climbed up the ridge of the cliff. He had heard a voice telling him to come here. Beside him was the prototype that would one day become the Knight series, the backbone of his forces. It held a blaster rifle and a big sack. There was something valuable here, he knew it, and he would be taking it away with him. It felt cold and metallic, yet it was not truly metal. Anakin had scoffed at his 'visions' as he had referred to them. Before he learned that he was like the Jedi in that things moved for him when he wanted them to, stupid and or naive people did what he told them to, he could make people hurt and perhaps most importantly he knew with absolute accuracy what was coming over the next five minutes, though he carefully made sure that he had 'accidents' from time to time to keep people from discovering that last part. At that point he had thought that five minutes was the low end of things, but in the future he would learn that the best Jedi could hope for was 5 seconds. He also got 'feelings' as he called them. 'Go here.' 'Go there.' 'That guy has far too much money and far too few brain cells.' 'That guy is after you.' And other things like that. Anakin came across the crashed ship he seeked nestled in a cave. Truly a one in a million crash. After his enforcer dragged the door off of the ship, he saw that it was filled with boxes of galactic credits. Anakin was torn, on one hand they were nigh worthless out here, on the other hand, he now had an excuse to visit Coruscant and see that pretty senator again.

Age Twelve

At twelve years old, Anakin was taller than most sixteen year olds, and his sword training was going very well. He took a year away from podracing and tracked down a Tusken Bladedancer to teach him their ancient art. It was mostly lost even to them, and then when he could learn no more, Anakin ensured the uniqueness of his style by searching out and destroying all who knew it, being sure to draw out and record their fights, teasing out every bit of skill from them so he could further his training even more. There were only seventeen practitioners on the whole planet. He didn't fight them all at once as he wasn't suicidal. No they were spread out across Tatooine in single person monasteries, seemingly waiting for him on arrival. Only during the later battles did he learn that these were the force sensitive Tuskens, revered among their people as sages, philosophers and warlords, yet too Holy to come into direct contact with outside of great wars and rarely by designated individuals once they attained full mastery. They had foreseen his arrival in the force and were eager for the challenge the 'Air Walker' would provide to their mettle. By the end of the week Anakin was covered in enough Tusken blood that the stains didn't wash out of his hair for months. Needless to say the Jedi Order's best wouldn't be beating him without a damn long fight. If he fought fair. The chances of that happening, though… laughable at best.

Age Thirteen

Anakin never was one for the rules, and at age thirteen he completed his first droid army, flouting Jabba's unofficial rule not to arm droids. He had started by hand building twenty labor droids and then with their assistance he built a small, self sustaining factory hidden deep inside a rock formation in the jundland wastes. It could be fed plans and would pump out droids according to those plans using the ore deposit it was built above. It took the better part of a year but the facility and the first 100 K1 Worker Warrior droids were complete and with that his true rise in the criminal courts of Tatooine began. Anakin started by taking control of all the businesses that Watto had owned as he knew them intimately from his time as a slave. Several distillerys, two bars, an out of the way slave market (which was turned into a personal prison instead), and the starport in Mos Espa. He switched the current operators with the slaves he freed from the slave market and had droids guard the prison This quadrupled his monthly income and gave him some real breathing room for raw material acquisition. Almost immediately Anakin sent for several standard tons of Mandalorian Iron, Phrik, Cortosis, Devanite, Djaebuur and many more of the galaxy's most durable metals. He then reforged his entire set of droids with a protective coating of EACH of the metals. No Jedi were going to come fuck up his day and he refused to allow just any thug with a gun to damage his babies. This became the new standard for his Knights. Anakin made an entire armory of swords out of various alloys of the metals as well as pure and layered examples. He wasn't keen on having a mystic order of warrior monks with a grudge coming in and cutting him down because his weapon failed him in a time of need. At this time he had already fended off multiple Jedi hit squads and only his quick thinking, home field advantage and burgeoning sword skills had saved his ass from getting dusted.

Age Fourteen

Anakin had completed three high profile political assassinations on Coruscant in the past year for Jabba. The Senators were all trying to drum up support for expanding senate rule farther into the outer rim. That… was unacceptable and Anakin did their families pro bono to discourage that kind of thinking. Anakin had no illusions of being able to capture a republic occupied Tatooine at this point. In hindsight, Jabba learning of this was probably the biggest contributor to his skyrocket past the pointless intrigue of lower nobility and being inducted straight into the powerful middle house.

Age Fifteen

Anakin remembered it well. The last time he had seen Queen, no, Senator Amidala. He was meeting a smuggler based on Coruscant that supposedly had a connect for dirt cheap Mando Iron. After the man and his crew had been disposed of by his droids for lying and then attempting to ambush him, Anakin suddenly had a lot of time on his hands. He went to one of the high profile restaurants that served only the richest and flashed his sigil to the host. The man's eyes widened, filling with fear and awe in equal measures. Per his longtime request, he was swiftly escorted to a corner booth where he could observe his surroundings with ease. They knew what he wanted so he didn't have to bother ordering. In any case what he came here for was decidedly NOT the food. No it was another regular, a delicious one at that. She came here religiously, every thursday for dinner at 6pm standard. What Anakin did could DEFINITELY be described as stalkerish, but he didn't care. He knew that he was a monster. Senator Amidala came in, escorted by a handsome man and a trio of security personnel. He growled, how dare some pleb lay a hand on his Queen! Anakin stood up and strode over to the group, a demonic grin on his face. He walked directly up to HIS Queen and gave her a searing kiss on the lips. What he go in return was predictable. He could still feel the handprint on his right cheek a year later when he thought about it hard enough, it was pure bliss. His Queen screamed in rage and ordered her puny guards to remove Anakin from her presence. They certainly tried to, but when they grabbed his shoulders, they couldn't move him an inch. "Bringing other men to our restaurant, My Queen? Such pettiness. I thought you were above this, no?" Anakin had said.

"Get away from me you monster! Go back to your hole and stay there. Coruscant is for the civilized only!" Amidala had said. "I don't know why you insist on stalking me, but it ends today! Arrest this criminal!" At those words, the man escorting her drew a lightsaber and charged at Anakin, intent on taking a piece home with him.

"Naughty Naughty!" Replied Anakin, his sword in his hand at the word arrest. "I'd say that this counts as self defense, wouldn't you, My Queen?" Amidala stayed quiet with the stormy expression not leaving her face for one second. Truthfully she didn't agree with the Jedi Council's plan, but this man had been stalking her for years, and she had heard terrible things about him from other places. He was mostly harmless on Coruscant though and he was an untouchable on his own planet, so there wasn't really any set of laws to hold him accountable to. Even when he did bad shit, he always left his legal options open, like now. Technically the Jedi had no grounds to arrest him. It was a simple kiss and while it could be argued that he was sexually harassing her, the scandal that such a court case would provide Amidala with was unthinkable and he had a private army to bust him out anyways if the Jedi were right. There were far easier ways to resign from being a Senator and ones that wouldn't also follow you home. Planetary security forces couldn't match up to his droids so it would take no less than a powerful Jedi, or so the council had said, to take him down.

*Schlick* "I'll take that," Anakin said, catching the severed hand that was still limply holding an unlit lightsaber. The Jedi jumped back, eyes burning yellow as he clutched his stump and glowered at Anakin "That's forty seven" Said Anakin, counting all the lightsabers that the Jedi Council had donated to his exotic weapon collection. "I wish we could chat but it seems I must leave before the REAL authorities come by and accidentally impale themselves, it would be a tragedy, I assure you I am crying inside. See these tears? Thank the good Jedi Order for the meal when you next see them!" Anakin wrote an IOU and signed it to the name of the Jedi Council, writing a series of numbers that corresponded to a Blackmail file he had on them to ensure that they paid up. Such nice gentlemen. Meh, he didn't have hard credits on him anyways. As he was just about to pass from Queen Amidala's hearing range he left a parting shot; "I'll be back, After all, I'm a CIVILIZED monster and won't eat anything but the best." He didn't need to see her to know that she was sucking on a lemon at having her words used in such a twisted about way.

And that had marked the start of participating in activities that could be thought of as Civilized… culture wise at least. He purchased, (read: stole), a large quantity of rare and valuable vintages of wine and other alcohols and began collecting every variety that he could get his hands on. He started giving museums and galleries his patronage. Even going so far as to loan some lightsabers and holocrons to be displayed in The Coruscant Museum, then personally inviting the Jedi Council to peruse the new exhibit and hoping that one was stolen. The museum was ecstatic as the tightass Jedi Order wouldn't let any of theirs be displayed to the masses. The Council…. Well let's say that Mace Windu in a ski mask isn't much blacker than he is without one, and Master Fisto couldn't find one in his size so he wore a trash bag with holes. The traps that Anakin set up to catch thieves were suitably effective and added multiple lightsabers to his collection. He got up on all the latest core fashions, then promptly burned them all in favor of his usual combat garb. Some things even he wouldn't do for love.


	9. Chapter 9

**-Chapter 9-**

Anakin watched as the RNN ship entered hyperspace, its course hardwired for Coruscant. It's cargo was much more significant than any simple interview recording. Hidden between the layers of hologram recording was a powerful virus intended for the Jedi Temple mainframe and The Senate Building central computer hub. He hadn't planned on installing undetectable permanent backdoors in either of those systems, but why pass up such a delicious chance? His droids had mocked them up as he flew to the destroyer and they were on par with the works of the greatest of artists in the slicing world by the time the ship left communication range by going into hyper.

Three weeks later

"We are going to need a bigger fleet." Anakin said, mostly to himself. Anakin pulled up schematics for a shipyard he had been toying around with building. The only thing that was stopping him was that he couldn't build it to operate 100% automated. With the delicate processes needed in shipbuilding on a large scale, writing a droid program simply didn't cut it. No he would need Corellian engineers to man this bad boy. "CM-MD. Pull the trigger on the shipyard. I'm going to jump to Corellia and… Acquire talent."

Anakin shouted orders to the bridge crew and grabbed a quick nap. Then, before Anakin knew it, the Light Destroyer 'Malignance' was coming out of hyperspace above Corellia.

The industrial planet of Corellia was a major shipbuilding hub for the Republic Navy. Borrowing a few engineers would NOT go unnoticed and the neither the Corellian nor the Republic Navy would not be pleased with him. Since skilled shipbuilding engineers are so hard to replace, they would be coming after him. Well, slightly more than they would otherwise that is.

Anakin set his Light Destroyer down in a heavily industrialized section and ordered his droids to bring him talent. The slicers hacked into the local engineer's guild database and circulated images and profiles of all members to all friendly units. Other K7s ran off and started picking up targets and returning them to the cargo hold en masse. As soon as they were full, Anakin ordered the ship back into orbit to the sound of sirens and screaming bombers in the distance.

Unsurprisingly, there was a blockade waiting for him, but Anakin wasn't concerned. "Load torpedo tubes 1-10 with Warhead T" Anakin calmly ordered. The holo screens showed droids rushing to fulfil his orders. "Flush torpedo tubes!" Multiple deep thump-humms were heard as all ten torpedo tubes emptied into space, vomiting their deadly contents all over inbound enemy dreadnaughts.

Normally, when a large space ship is 'destroyed', and I use that term very lightly as It's usually more of a "mission kill" as the ship doesn't actually 'sink' anywhere, Only a small portion of the crew actually dies, From 10%-20%. This is of course different if the ships reactor is cored, in which case it can be a higher percentage, though even then hardly ever exceeding 50%. The ship's internal airlocks, modular armor barriers and firewalls isolate damage and the wreck simply floats there until the battle is decided one way or another and the crews can be recovered for prisoner trades or redeployment depending on the victor. It goes against all military conventions to intentionally destroy a ship with all hands as that is seen as excessive loss of life. As you might guess, that's not nearly as bad as destroying a whole fleet with all hands, but Anakin's new favorite weapon didn't really come with a 'medium' setting. Doing so could easily have the guilty party painted as a war criminal with a few creative twists to Intersystem law and some 'hired' media attention. Well, that sounded about right to Anakin, though this was an… inopportune time to have that brush used.

Warhead T. An experimental weapon designed to use a target's shields against them. It consisted of a powerful Ion warhead with a detachable hyper-compressed tibanna based compound explosive on its tail that was shot directly into the thickest part of the enemy's shields. Just before impact, the tail charge was detached and slowed to half speed, far away enough that it was not caught up in the Ion explosion and wasted before it was in a position to do maximum damage. With the shields suddenly intangible, the charge's secondary thruster, a small hyperdrive engine, propelled it directly into the meat of the target. It truly didn't matter where it hit, the ship itself would be pulverized on impact. Then, taking the energy of the fluctuating shields and the damaged reactor, the reaction would send a shockwave outwards, its size depending on the strength of the shields, followed swiftly by a spray of shrapnel consisting of the entirety of the rest of the ship. Truly a beautiful weapon.

Comms chatter which had until this point been orders to stand down and inquiries as to who he was went silent. A single transmission was picked up by his comms station. "Withdraw all ships, we can't match that." As expected, all hostile ships withdrew from their path and Anakin moved to enter hyperspace unmolested with his very useful cargo. Slaves? No. Citizen Conscripts. Terminology is very important politically, though he doubted this operation would snag him any brownie points with anyone when it came out exactly who had executed it. "Thanks for the engineers!" Was his parting shot on wide band comms. He could hear the ever blissful mental growls of a soundly beaten enemy through the force.

Anakin wandered through his ship, cataloging the captured engineers. He had made off with some very high key targets. On the low end, he got about twenty fresh out of college average entry level engineers as well as another fifty who had been in the workforce for at least ten years, yet were nothing special. Then came the interesting ones. Somehow, he had captured the guild master, a semi-retired man of seventy who just couldn't let his work go and was still one of the best, a true artist, having worked on more designs in his career than the combined total of the rest. Anakin would do him a favor and make the choice for him and put him to work as a project overseer. He got a set of ten engineers who were directly responsible for designing and in the future producing one of the Republic's experimental ship designs. Without them, the project would have to be scrapped wholesale. The ship, when built, would be the biggest stealth ship ever made, clocking in at full cruiserweight. It would resemble an Acclimator in general shape and size, though with a complete stealth drive and a custom hyperdrive tuned to micro jumping and most of the space and power supply onboard dedicated to anti capital ship weapons and hypermatter storage rather than a ground and fighter compliment. It could decloak, nail an enemy with its fifty turbolasers several times, before cloaking and jumping somewhere else only to come around and nail another target or targets from a different angle in under a minute. Unstoppable, really. He would have to get that damn exposed bridge taken out of the design though.

While Anakin didn't doubt that they could complete the plans and start production in four months max, he naturally had some modifications that needed to be included. First and foremost was the inclusion of seventy torpedo tubes fitted for Warhead T, and he wasn't satisfied with just fifty turbolasers. He was glad that the droids who had picked up the team had done so in their workplace and brought along the only copy of the plans as well.

Though those last 10 guys… The Republic would be AFTER him for them. He needed a fleet in his orbitals yesterday. And he knew exactly where to… Acquire one.

Anakin spent his time on the trip back giving the engineers their new orders and writing a computer virus to usurp control of droids from their owners. It wouldn't work on all droids as some simply had too good computer security, but for the target he had in mind it would be perfect.

Anakin wasn't about to accept dissent and was never any good at diplomacy, so his opening play was to waltz in and behead half the fresh engineers. Luckily CM-MD talked him out of that and instead: "You can consider yourselves citizen conscripts of the Skywalker Barony." Anakin said as he strode into the large holding area flanked by a dozen K7s "I don't care how you feel about this matter, I have slave collars for those who feel they cannot obey orders and don't want a paycheck and enough of those to fit each of you twice over. You will be released in ten years, or never if you want some neck bling." Anakin said. "Any Questions?" asked Anakin. One man stood up and said "bu..." He was cut off by a K7 snapping a slave collar around his neck and zapping him with an excessive voltage. Didn't look fun, 0/10 would not recommend. "Well now that there are no questions, I want the Excelsior-class Cruiser design team front and center, we will be going over your project and making some modifications. Your temporary workshop is just down the hall. Don't give me any shit and you'll be free to go once the first wave are through construction and testing, though I'm sure I can convince you to stick around afterwards." Anakin left, expecting to be followed. He was not disappointed.

"I'm not sure of what you know about me, but until last week I was a middle house Noble on Tatooine." Anakin said as he led the conscripts through the halls "This is read 'Crime Lord' in pretty much any core system. I've done some terrible shit, and have no plans of stopping. You can work with me or you can be worked by me, it's your choice, unlike that poor idiotic fellow who just had the rest of his life taken from him, though in my opinion he didn't need it anyways." He continued oblivious to their looks of horror "Now I am the Baron of the Skywalker Barony. You will address me as Sir, Baron, or Mr. Skywalker. Only my close friends have other options and you… are not." They reached the door to the workshop and Anakin assigned them their stations. "These Knights will be your bodyguards... and wardens. They are all programmed with more than enough intel on Engineering that they will know if you are stalling, sabotaging or otherwise detracting from your potential output. They have a sufficient supply of slave collars on hand for you to also be concerned if they feel the need to be. I really don't want to enslave you but I want the ship you were working on and I have always been a little short on morals… and patience. Get to work!" Anakin shouted the last bit and then left the room, leaving five K7s behind to watch over the Engineers.

Anakin had just reached his private quarters when his commlink went off. He saw that it was Vos calling him from Tatooine. Anakin picked up "Hello Vos, what can I do for you?" he asked

"It's terrible boss! They are everywhere! They landed in a cloaked ship just inside your compound and are combing the place as we speak! They hadn't gotten to the droids yet, but I wasn't optimistic."

Anakin stifled a laugh and then pretended to be alarmed "Who? The Hutts? Those fat tubs of lard! They are never that fast with an offensive!"

"No boss, It's them Jedi wizards. I just barely go away in one of your podracers, Nearly killed myself with the damn thing too! I brought two of your droids, you know the ones that have been following me. Well I thought that they would be good in a scrape."

Anakin suppressed a snort "Nah Vos they are as good as kindling to a Jedi I only posted what I needed to subdue you on you. They were to keep you out of trouble. I needed all my newer models for other gigs. Oops." Anakin said, though it was a lie. He just wanted to mess with Vos, the Togruta was perfectly safe, from everything except his high cholesterol and flights of financial fancy that is.

A short scream ensued "There is one here! He's after me! What should I do? Why are there Jedi after you?"

Anakin whistled "Well it really depends on when they were deployed. If it was last week, it was probably because of the RNN crew that I captured. But I let them go! No harm no foul, right! If they were deployed between yesterday and now, mmm... it was probably about the Corellians… yep."

"Excuse me a minute from your ramblings, The Jedi is demanding my surrender. Should I go ahead and kill myself and get it over with, or what?"

Anakin's eye bulged "No, no I was messing with you, the droids you have with you will be perfectly capable of defending you from one measly Jedi. I just hope that my cameras are getting the events at my compound correctly. This is definitely the excuse I have been waiting for."

"Excuse for what?" Asked Vos.

"Excuse for what, he asks." Laughs Anakin shaking his head. "It's my excuse for… what's that flashing?" The line went dead on Vos as he witnessed his two bodyguards gut the Jedi after it's lightsaber proved singularly ineffective on their armor.

"I think I need to sit down," said Vos to himself.


	10. Chapter 10

**-Chapter 10-**

Two days before

"…e convene here today to go over the packet received from this upstart Skywalker who thinks he's a head of state and thus worthy of our attention." Said a particularly uptight Senator. Mace Windu sighed, he just wanted to send a few Jedi strike teams after Skywalker at the same time. He had only ever been authorized to send master-padawan pairs and the occasional single strike team as it had to remain off the books due to Tatooine being outside of Republic jurisdiction. By several sectors and multiple soverign rulers. Now that Skywalker was a head of state, even though the route Skywalker took to become as such was questionable legally and absolutely horrid morally, things would be even more difficult for him. Short of declaring war on Skywalker, he was legally untouchable with automatic diplomatic immunity inside of Republic systems for all crimes past and future. And from Mace's offhand recollection that was a LOT of records to delete. Mace wasn't feeling very Jedi-like lately as he had been having dreams of the conversation he and the rest of the Council had with his rival Qui-Gon all those years ago.

Flashback

"There is one.. Other… little... thing, masters" Qui-Gon slowly and amended at the end of his report to the council. His face was significantly flushed. He had just gotten back from Naboo after freeing their people from Trade Federation occupation. The encounter with that young force user on Tatooine had been troubling for Qui-Gon and it had haunted him since. He relayed the entire encounter to the council and then explained that until he and Obi Wan encountered and then killed the Zabrak, he had thought that the boy was the one sent after them. "His force presence was smothering, but I didn't feel it until he spoke with the Queen. I also felt a… powerful dark lust emanating from him. An emotion that is present only in the fallen. It may have been a stretch to attack the boy, but at the time our group was heavily affected by the prolonged exposure to the unfamiliar Tatooine climate, myself regrettably included. My better judgement was more of a snap offhand decision."

Qui-Gon grew more animated, gesturing wildly as if to take the focus off his earlier blunders and trying to stir the council into a storm of righteous fury, related his experience having his mind invaded by the boy. "Only the most powerful of force users could have done that, even more so since he was too young to have extensive experience in the art. Also that he would be willing to practice such an art in the first place? The boy is a threat, I tell you!"

End Flashback

At the time, Mace had thought that Qui-Gon was simply embarrassed at having lost his lightsaber to a barely trained, self taught, initiate. Months later and several reports from Jedi Shadows assigned to monitor the lad, Mace was agreeing more and more. Over the years, as Shadows started mysteriously going missing, he became extremely wary and ordered a hit on the at that time young man. At when their bodies were left on the temple steps in sacks marked "Self Defence, Motherfucker!" sans all force artifacts and their lightsabers, his fears were confirmed. The boy was a major threat. An individual able to successfully take on and kill entire Jedi strike teams needed to go away, for good. Only a Jedi could have so much personal power as only they could be trusted to wield it for the good of the Jedi.

Now, he was one hundred percent certain that Anakin Skywalker needed to die. If it took glassing his planet into the stone age, then that's what it would take. "Jedi like thoughts? What are those? I can't remember the last time my thoughts were Jedi like." Mace frowned deeper, deeply disappointed that he had sunk this far. But in the scheme of things, he would fall 1000 times deeper if it meant the success and prosperity of the Jedi order.

"The sub-committee has been sent some representatives from the Jedi council to assist us with this matter." The man added as an afterthought. "We hope to…." The man was cut off by Padme Amidala "Senator Barne, That is enough. The only thing we should do with that packet is hand it over to GAR high command for processing into battle plans. That monster needs to be stopped. His crimes are numerous and include offenses that would see him brought straight to the chopping block for crimes against civilization on any core world. Need I remind you of the RNN crew he starved to death? STARVED!"

Senator Amidala was of course referring to the ghastly video that the RNN crew had recorded to go along with the packet.

A holographic likeness of Cynthia appeared, though she was prone, barely slouched against a wall, not even looking at the recorder. "This is… *Cough*… Cynthia… Cynthia Amena. Two weeks ago we were captured by… *Groan*... Baron Anakin Skywalker. He dragged us into jail cells, and then took me and interviewed me before sexually harassing me. He then had his hench droids put us back into our ship and hardwired our hyperdrive towards Coruscant. It wasn't until a day later that we realized that our hyperdrive wasn't the only thing he messed with. He also took all of our food, emergency rations and water, including emptying out our septic systems. Normally this would have been annoying but ultimately harmless aside from a few hunger pangs before we got to our destination. Unfortunately he has replaced our hyperdrive with a very… primitive one. We will not make it alive. The crew has decided not to resort to cannibalism as even doing so won't guarantee our survival, to do so feels like we would be simply giving in to his evil. I'm the last one left. I hope you can see this monster brought to justice for his crimes. Tell my family th..." Her head lolled and her lips moved, completing her thought "..at I love them" before she breathed out and went still for a final time. The recording continued on for a time, decay set in slightly, then at the very end it showed a masked rescue crew running through the ship checking pulses, proclaiming time of death confirmations and zipping up body bags. One of them spotted it and the bag that Cynthia carried and picked it up. He looked into the bag briefly, then shut the recorder off.

The packets and datapad had made their way through the chain of command all the way up to the Chancellor's office. He had dismissed it at first, simply perusing through the files then filing the entire package, not having seen anything that could be prosecuted without adding another player to the war. In his opinion, they could deal with young Skywalker at a later date, preferably when the war would not become three pronged.

Senator Amidala had seen the video leaked onto the holonet by one of the first responders or one of the people who got it afterwards and was understandably disturbed. She found out of the Chancellor's stance and was equally disturbed. Also understandably, he did NOT have a good afternoon, it being disturbed by a pissed off Amidala. From this series of understandable disturbances, 'The Subcommittee to deal with Skywalker' was born.

"Master Windu do you have anything to add?" asked the Senator who was speaking. The Subcommittee had been going on and on with inane political drivel, focused more on not giving "Skywalker" legitimacy by recognizing his title than actually doing anything.

"Well to be honest, I and a handful of other masters have had a plan to deal with Baron Skywalker since he was a child just coming into his power and beginning to profess his wicked ways. Unfortunately we have been unable to receive either approval from the Senate nor the supermajority vote of the Jedi Council to bypass the Senate… yet." Mace emphasized the last word, hoping to get carte blanche to deal with the problem. He believed that he could take Skywalker but his duties on Coruscant had always prevented him from attending their little parties. "I'll personally take a team of thirty Jedi and five thousand clone troopers in a fleer and hunt him down on his home planet. We will capture him and put an end to his dark game."

The Senators were understandably disturbed at the proposed action. Not only was it Illegal, the repercussions of it being found out that they supported such a seemingly overkill mission against a rival head of state without a formal declaration of war were… well it could re-fracture the Republic.

"Master Jedi, surely with that many Jedi you don't need the clones?" Asked another Senator. "We won't be able to keep that quiet, and you know what the public will do to us! We'll be crucified!"

Mace gave him a dark look "Yes I know, though dealing with the threat that the Skywalker brat poses is much bigger than our political aspirations. Using the force to read minds is all about power. Skywalker is the most powerful force user in recent history and to have him as a Head of State? If he attends a summit, which he is entitled to, all of the national secrets of all of the attendees will be exposed to him. This is unacceptable. Even twenty Jedi shielding the minds of each other head of state may not be enough. Mind reading is not illegal as it is impossible to detect by a non force user and in court, a Jedi's word vs a Dark Side user will be painted as a religious bias by any competent lawyer in the galaxy, with their testimony dropped like spice before a checkpoint. You know what happens when religion is brought into politics, and it's ALWAYS politics in a force user's trial. Not that we actually have the right to try him for ANYTHING in the first place as he is not nor ever was a citizen of the Republic."

All the attendees winced. They knew exactly what happened when Religion was brought up. A clusterfuck, that's what.

"And that is only one of his dangerous powers." Mace elaborated "We have clocked him at being able to continuously perceive the world a minute ahead of time. No ambushing, no catching him off guard. He could buy a lottery ticket just before the drawing and walk away with the jackpot with time to spare time after time. He has more than mastered the arts of the Tusken Bladedancers that inspired parts of the second and fifth forms of Jedi lightsaber combat. We have never been able to refine those styles to their levels, nor learn directly, as the entry rites into their society are... very distasteful to our code." Ritual murder of a child under the age of five is no laughing matter after all.

None of the senators really had a response to that. Some muttering, that's all.

"So, all agreed to my plan?" Mace asked with a cheeky smile.

One by one the Senators voiced their assent, This was turning out to be the quickest session that Mace had ever attended, while simultaneously having the greatest ratio of sacred laws of the Jedi Order bent till they broke to minutes.

"We are leaving." Said Mace, his robes billowing behind him as he led the Jedi attendees out of the room, He had troops to acquire and a war to plan.

''Bout damn time, Motherfuckers.' thought Mace.


	11. Chapter 11

**-Chapter 11-**

A bright flashing light startled Anakin halfway through his conversation with a panicked Vos. He cut the communication and looked at his progress map. They were just passing through Abregado and something was forcing him out of hyperspace. All systems in the Abregado sector were either uncontrolled or under CIS occupation and it seemed that the seppies now had a ship with a gravity well generator parked along this particular stretch. 'Well looks like someone wants a big fat taste of Warhead T,' Anakin thought to himself. He didn't think that they knew they got HIM but he would make sure that they didn't forget him when he was done with them. In the afterlife they would curse nothing and nobody less and think only of futile revenge.

"Load all torpedo tubes, be ready to fire on whatever pulled us out on my order. I can guarantee they are not friendly, Mark that, I don't care if they are friendly." Anakin ordered his deck crew. He was receiving calls from the droids 'protecting' the engineers saying that they wanted information on what was going on. Then, they lost all power.

Anakin was NOT happy. His ship was personally designed to withstand all types of ionic interference on all but the highest levels. Superweapon class ionic energy was simply too expensive to insulate against in anything bigger than a starfighter or maybe a small light freighter.

"I want this power back on yesterday! Replace fuses like your metal hides depends on it, because it does!" Anakin bellowed at his crew, a little angry at himself for being so cheap with systems that would have protected them. "What hit us?"

One of his K7s provided the answer by pointing at a large ship displayed on a highly magnified display screen. It was barely visible through an asteroid belt that Anakin didn't know existed in such density. Anakin didn't think he could have hit the ship without using the force, and he definitely didn't think that any known targeting computer would cut it. Maybe that was part of the ship's power? An experimental targeting system? "Hold fire, I'm going in personally. I want that ship and whatever technology that they used to hit us with… whatever that was." Anakin ran the short distance to the small rear hanger to jump into his Starfighter. It was a refit of a Sith Starfighter salvaged from deep under the desert surface and upgraded to next gen technology. The one thing he kept were its weapon systems. He couldn't replicate them, he had a feeling that Sith Alchemy or some such voodoo was involved, but the lasers and the torpedo launching mechanism were hundreds of years ahead of even the current weapons technology. So more like 1000s of years ahead of THEIR time. Anakin had wondered how the pilot got shot down, but then he looked at the original propulsion and shielding systems and found his answer. Luckily all those shortcomings had been taken care of with the best that credits could buy and it was a powerful force to be reckoned with after he brought it to and beyond modern standards.

After a small hyperjump to cut the travel time, Anakin reentered realspace to behold a gruesome sight. The 'Asteroid belt' with ships wreckage that he had thought he was perceiving on the scopes back in his destroyer was really more like a ship's graveyard with a few stones mixed into it. The most recent victims were three Republic Cruisers and a handful of smaller blockade runner escort ships. The Malevolence just seemed to be waiting there.

Anakin activated his stealth drive and got in really close. He landed on the surface of the ship, near a closed access hatch and his ship's electromagnetic lock engaged, ensuring his ship would be there when he returned. Anakin put the helmet of his flight suit on and sealed it shut. This would protect him from the vacuum. He slowly depressurized his cabin and then opened it. He looked around. Nothing indicated his approach had been noticed, but his gut told him to be careful. Anakin took out the data spike containing his newly written virus, looking over it to make sure it was functional. Satisfied, he space walked over to the access hatch using the force to propel himself with accuracy. He grabbed the latch and was surprised when there was no lock to keep him out. Stupid droids.

"Right, So we'll just sit here, and hold our breath." Said Sergeant Sinker with ample sarcasm. "Someone will come looking for us, Right?" Replied Boost. Commander Wolfe looked to Plo-Koon for guidance. The level headed Kel-Dor calmed everybody down by keeping calm and ordering them to restore power, So that if someone did come they would be there to be found.

Killing that pod hunter hadn't been easy, and getting back inside the pod had finished off Commander Wolfe, who didn't have a pressure suit. His eyes had burst from his skull, splattering blood around the cabin and he begged them to end it. Plo-Koon had tried some healing, but he always was a warrior first and eventually allowed the clones to put their brother out of his misery, he was swiftly losing a critical amount of blood. They were all hungry, their rations being spaced when they opened the door after having been shaken free from their wall emplacements during the partial crushing of the hull and the life support system had been on its last legs virtually since they launched. Commander Wolfe's corpse was ripening and had there been flies, they would have been all over it. Plo Koon was putting the last touches on a triple encrypted missive to the Jedi Council should their bodies be discovered in the future when they all heard it. The whirring of engines of a big starship. They could only hope that it was Republic as they didn't have hardly any fight left in them.

Anakin snuck through the corridors, his naked Cortosis blade held behind him at waist level, ready to bisect some droids. The first thing he had done when he boarded was slice a terminal for a map and directions to the central computer room. His objectives were to figure out what was so special about this ship, and then install his droid capture program into the local network. If there were any organic crew members onboard, he would have them terminated by his new army. He would then have the ship jump back to the Tatoo system and get in close with an ice ring around Adriana. If the targeting system was as good as he thought, it would have no trouble reducing any attacking fleets to dust before they got close to Tatooine.

He rounded a corner and came face to face with the group of droids he didn't slow down one bit and sliced them into scrap metal. His monomolecular, highly dense sword and monstrous force enhanced strength reduced the atomic bonds between the cheap durasteel plating to nothing upon impact. It really was unfair. He felt bad for the droids, and contemplated just being merciful and spacing the lot of them right here. If he brought them with him, they would become so much scrap metal for better droids, at least here they might be picked up by another seppie… shit… nope can't have that, to the scrap pile it is!

It felt like an hour later that Anakin finally made it to the computer room. He opened up the ship's log and looked for what had happened to bring his ship out of hyper.

"Wow thats so dumb, It's gotta be bullshit."

As it turns out, Anakin's ship had been shot out of hyperspace by ACCIDENT! There was no super sophisticated targeting system like he had hoped. Nothing was truly special about this ship other than its energy hog, Kill-Me-Plx-Target Ion Cannon. He'd have to get that vulnerability fixed. 'The Malevolence? I like that name.' Anakin thought. 'I guess I can build a targeting system on my own.'

The Ion Wave, because that's what it was, not a beam or a shot, had taken out three cruisers in one shot. it was a small city-sized dome of highly ionized plasma energy that shot away parallel to the side of the ship. It was a powerful weapon to be sure, but Anakin was sure that he could one up it. He certainly liked Warhead T better. Less, messy mop up operations afterwards. After the enemy vessel had no shields or maneuverability, the ship's five hundred turbolasers would swiftly target and reduce critical systems of whatever was left until it wasn't.

Anakin's eyes widened as he watched recordings of the ship's latest battle. It was a slaughter. Granted that The Malevolence would have likely killed those ships without the ion cannon, but it sustained zero damage while completely destroying the republic's task force. A red footnote caught his attention. It was dated for yesterday.

'Survivors destroyed a pod hunter, eh?' sounds like my kind of survivors. "Cruiser command, bring light cruiser cloaked to these coordinates, Capture and detain entire crew. They will likely need medical assistance and food, provide them with it. I have a feeling that there is a Jedi on board. Sedate and restrain him to a table, dosage for a force sensitive Kel-Dor. After that jump back to Tatoo I'll be there with a new prize soon enough" Anakin hung up and sent the coordinates. He knew that his orders would be followed 110%.

"General, we have detected an unauthorized communication aboard the Malevolence, sir" said a B1. "We didn't catch the contents, and we didn't catch its origin, and we… didn't catch its destination."

This earned the B1 a backhand that took Its head off

"General, Those droids are expensive." said Count Dooku.

"With all due respect, Count, No they aren't, and I have been trying for months to get more expensive ones that actually work. If we had higher quality droids, or even droids of mediocre quality, we would have won this war before it started." Replied General Grievous.

Count Dooku shrugged. "Well I was trying to be all cryptic and mysterious but I will work on my timing a bit, I suppose." After all General Grievous was correct. They were pieces of shit and everyone knew it too. The laughingstock of the galaxy. He just hoped that nobody exploited their shitty data security systems. That would give him a bad headache. He had personally vouched for the contractor for that element of the droids, and had made a considerable sum in kickbacks off the deal, but he knew that they would do a shoddy job. "Maybe in the future, you know how things are with the budget General." Dooku replied, ever the politician.

"Whatever, Lock down the computer control center, reactor and bridge then find me our stowaway! Or do you think you can handle that?"

"Roger Rog…. Understood, Sir." said the droids together, then opened fire on the General and Count Dooku as one, catching them both sorely off guard.

As soon as he was finished with his reading, Anakin plugged the data spike into the console. First he changed the commander for all onboard units to himself, then issued orders to kill all sentient ex-commanders on the spot. There were two life presences on board, though one of them was very faint and felt more machine than man. 'Probably that separatist dog Grievous.' Anakin concluded. He felt them both be snuffed out in an overwhelming storm of plasma. The idiots were probably standing on a raised pedestal in the command tower and caught on the back foot, fired upon from all sides by dozens of troops. Nobody could survive that, shitty droids or not. It would be an absolute kill zone.

On the bridge, Anakin found almost exactly what he expected to. A dais holding a steaming Count Dooku with a pile of mangled steel limbs welded to a odd shaped barrel containing boiled guts and eyeballs splayed on the ground in front of it. Droids stood in lines at attention. Anakin waved at the… mess. "Clean this shit up, but don't throw it away, it has propaganda value. Set course for Tatoo."

Anakin was about to go find a room to rest in, when he thought better of it. "Bring the contents of both of their personal chambers to the main docking bay and stack it all near my starfighter." Anakin then grabbed the lightsabers from the fallen (now in more ways than one) Jedi and the Kaleesh cyborg and swept from the room. Anakin called his starfighter to the docking bay.

"Punch it."


	12. Chapter 12

**-Chapter 12-**

 **A/N: In lieu of a beta reader, I update my old chapters as I find mistakes. This way I do not have to keep you away from much deserved updates, and still end up with a polished story. IF you notice** **major** **grammar or spelling mistakes or plot holes on chapters more than five from the most recent chapter, feel free to PM me and I will do my best to clarify!**

'That no good piece of… Hanging up on me! Takes over a planet and suddenly doesn't have time for poor stupid Bellamere. Maybe I should take his planet and shove it up his ass! See how he likes that. I hope those Jedi burnt his beautiful house into the ground!' Bellamere was driving the deathtrap back to Anakin's compound. Maybe he'd just surrender to the Jedi and claim that Anakin had kidnapped and coerced him, that he droids were following Anakin's orders (To be fair, they were) and that the Jedi that had followed him had gotten lost, VERY lost. Yeah... that would work. He could taste the sarcasm in those notions. What he saw when he got back was nothing like what he was expecting, and cemented in his mind the absolute lack of forgiveness the Jedi would have for anyone who had ever been associated with Anakin.

With broken brown robed bodies and sliced up chassis surrounding them, Mace Windu was dueling against the General Droid, one with a purple lightsaber and the other with a wide greatsword made out of a Cortosis-Beskar alloy that had to weight five hundred pounds, easily six hundred. But the General, 'CM-MD, I think his designation was' thought Vos, was whipping the massive thing around like a reed wand. Mace had several huge, bleeding gashes where he had been caught by the tip attempting to dodge, and his right arm was dislocated, maybe broken. If Bellamere had to guess, Windu had tried to block the greatsword head on, thinking that he would simply slice right through, no big deal, and then had his world rocked by far upwards of five thousand pounds of pressure converging on his sword arm in an instant. Now Bellamere had heard that strength enhancement using the force is significant, but that kind of pressure without any kind of warning? He was probably lucky to still have the arm.

For obvious reasons, Vos did NOT want to get involved. He trusted Anakin to build death machines, so he would have to put his NCs on the General Droid and call in backup. Before leaving, Anakin had given him the command codes to activate his reserve force in case of attack. So that was exactly what he did. He ran inside the main building and punched the codes into the console just inside the door. A whirring ensued before metal footsteps started running up a hidden ramp in the courtyard. Through a nearby window, he saw one thousand cortosis plated K7 units pour into the courtyard, longswords drawn and striking at the Jedi Battlemaster in a coordinated manner, aiming to incapacitate. Mace lasted a long time, but eventually they gave the CM-MD the opening he needed to lop Mace's one still working hand off and then knocked him out with a powerful pommel strike. A few of the K7s carted the Jedi off to the medical center. He was a high value prisoner so he would be treated… Well. At least until Anakin got back that is. They hated each other with a passion, so nobody could really say at that point.

 **Flashback**

On the day of the Flood, Bellamere had been going about his day, ordering around the droids building the track around, adding in little things that Anakin hadn't thought of. It wasn't a surprise, truly. While a nominally superb businessman, Anakin had far more experience on the track betting on himself or with a gun in someone's face telling them that a deal is good and that they should thank him, rather than in a lounge chair with a communicator and a handful of NCs just begging him for permission to multiply. Bellamere on the other hand was nearly seventy. He had attended over twenty years of higher education in business and infrastructure on worlds like Alderaan, Naboo and Coruscant. He also had lots of experience with the fine arts, with computers, with physical and digital design and had taken minor interest in nearly every available topic for study at all the universities he had attended. Bluntly, Anakin was a street rat from a backwater world who was nearly twenty. An amazingly talented and gifted street rat who was a savant in multiple fields, sure, but the nature of his education (Informal and fleeting at best) and his short span of years betrayed him when it came to the details in the fields that Bellamere thrived in. And Bellamere knew that Anakin was aware of his shortcomings. He had after all hired the best available talent, regardless of his personal feelings at the time.

He heard it first, Noise so pure and loud that he couldn't identify it. Then he saw a geyser shoot up not a mile away, seemingly straight into orbit. Vos knew it didn't and couldn't actually shoot into orbit, but from his perspective, it was significant. It continued on like that for nearly an hour, Then the rain started. For the longest time, it seemed like it would never stop. He was sure that the Tuskens were doing some sort of religious chant, this would seem like a doomsday scenario to them. And probably to many of the heavily superstitious moisture farmers too. Vos chuckled at that, Sure this kind of thing was startling, but Anakin had warned him about this so he wasn't caught too off guard. Vos looked over the edge of the canyon wall leading to beggar's canyon. A roaring river was already coursing through. The hardened rock walls were washed of all dirt and sediment and looked even more jagged than before. Vos had been hoping that the deluge from releasing that much water would be a little bit more gradual, but he couldn't say that he was surprised that Anakin decided to do it this way.

Anakin had simply set off a massive bomb inside the mountainside above the entrance to the pressurized reservoir. Something about a 'T.' So much for happy mediums.

The rain continued full steam for an entire day, then a week, after that the geyser seemed to become less and less powerful until Vos could barely see the top of it if he stood ten miles away. He was getting so sick of it that he almost wished that Tatooine was a desert agin. The lowest elevations were no longer land, and instead small seas had expanded outwards across the planet. Vos had even felt some cold and hot fronts moving around rapidly and put in an order for some meteorological equipment for future use. After a month, the rain finally stopped being fed by the geyser, now low enough that the water it shot up came straight back down and fed directly into Beggar's canyon, filling it to the brim and keeping it that way until it emptied to the northeast where the Northern Dune Sea was rapidly turning into the Northern Sea. That is not to say that the rain stopped, No the rain was still coming down from the geyser, but the water was on a multiple week long delay since the geyser had shot so much up there. Massive thunderclouds blotted out the horizon and Vos was scared to stand outside.

Vos stopped paying attention to the weather at that point and started paying more attention to Anakin's finances. Anakin hadn't locked anything from him but Vos didn't think for a second that it was because he was trusted. Anakin knew he was corrupt, but Anakin also knew that he was very aware of the fact that he wouldn't be leaving in any less than five years without saying hello to Anakin first. And if a single NC was unaccounted for it would be painfully obvious who had misplaced it.

First thing he did was buy twenty asteroid mining trawlers to take advantage of the ring of asteroids around both of the gas giants in the system as well as around the outer edges of the system. They belts had been scanned in the past and were rich in useful minerals, but they were so far from galactic industrial centers that mining them was written off as too expensive post-transportation. Now though there would be a local use for those minerals. Vos paid the significant fee to have them galactically recognized as claimed in Skywalker's name and when the trawlers arrived in a month, he would have them extracting many tons of minerals a day, many useful in construction and ship production while others were simply valuable such as one asteroid that was packed full of massive Vacuum gems and electrum that had been missed in the initial scans, a literal 'goldmine'. Another held an abandoned asteroid base cut into it that had cloaking technology that had only recently gone offline. It should be a great place to store part of the national treasury, or high profile prisoners once it was brought back online and armed to the teeth. A fleet placed around there could be explained away as an escort to the mining operations in the asteroid belt

Next, Vos ordered enough raw materials to have another twenty thousand cortosis K7s built. He also paid contractors to come and build a series of general purpose factories on a nearby island, as well as start building High Rises on the main continent that used to be The Great Mesra Plateau. After having the surface of Tatooine scanned from orbit, he was deeply disappointed in the mineral deposits, but pleasantly surprised that aside from being a bit harder than sandstone, the soil quality was relatively amazing on the tops of the plateaus after years of being a desert and then that massive rainfall probably washing away whatever it could get its grubby hands on.

On top of the massive shipyard being constructed in low orbit above Skywalker's residence, he ordered the K7s at his disposal to get to work on fourteen more of equal size placed close to the asteroid belt around Adriana as it had the most relevant materials for shipbuilding. Shipyards were great for building a military fleet and better for making profit. On top of those he ordered several orbital refineries built inside the belts as well for ease of turning their bounty into industry ready materials.

 **\- (TBH, I can't remember why I placed this here but I can't think of a better spot ^^^)-**

Bellamere started ordering the droids around him to clean up the Jedi and package them for shipment to Coruscant. He knew that Anakin would want to do that, and probably use this attack as an excuse for war while he was at it. He had done that before when he was younger, if Vos remembered correctly. 'Oh that fucker, THAT'S what he was saying before he hung up on me!' Vos realised with a start. 'Well I better get something drafted for him. Gotta pull my weight now that I'm in this for good.

'So how about like this' Thought Bel, then started talking.

"Questionably Honorable Jedi Council, I am Secretary of State Bellamere Vos of the Skywalker Barony. I can't help but sympathise with your plight. Not only did you get caught red handed trying to start a war, you also lost your entire force. Well, except for Battlemaster Windu. Unfortunately for him we aren't sure we want to part with him before finding out all the little secrets in his head. We will accept a payment of no less than 10 million tons of refined hypermatter delivered in a series of ten unmodified Tabder-Class superfreighters (That we will also be happy to relieve you of). We think that the national yearly budget of a large planet is equal in value to the life of one of your 'finest.' It should be no problem for you to shell out for good ol' Windy. Well, under normal circumstances that is. Considering he is a disgraced black operation task force leader, you might be too embarrassed to take him back at all. We understand him not being worth that much to you at the moment, and that's why we have taken the liberty of relieving the temple of all of your historic force artifacts, your holocrons, the entirety of your newest class of impressionable younglings, your archive and of course all of its backups. Surely you want a copy of those archives back, right? Maybe we will give you one dated say… 1000 years back if you play nice by trading for Windu and throw in publicly admitting your fault directly to the entire senate."


	13. Chapter 13

**-Chapter 13-**

Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Botanist, groaned and stretched. She looked around her room blinking the sleep out of her eyes. She waved her hand to silence the alarm blaring in her ear. Ahsoka leaps out of bed and calls her lightsaber to her, relishing the cool feeling of its metal against her skin. As it slaps her palm she can't help but sigh as she wishes she had been chosen to become a padawan those years ago. Ahsoka had turned nineteen three days ago and since then she had been looking back on her short life with the Order. Mostly with disdain. She never wanted to join Agricorp, and had a multitude of masters lining up to take her on, but her natural gift in revitalizing land was too powerful to waste on the front lines, the Council had said. 'What about my lightsaber skill?' Ahsoka now thought bitterly.

Ahsoka went through her morning rituals quietly, clean mind, clean body, nourished mind, nourished body. Meditate, shower, read, breakfast. Ahsoka was just as bored as before. 'I have got to be the most overqualified and underpaid workers in galactic history,' Ahsoka thought, 'All this knowledge, power and skill and I am relegated to glorified farmer.' And she was right, a Jedi education was one of the best you could get. They studied during their formative years, dozens of languages, and all the Sciences, Maths, History and Cultures that could be crammed into their head. If it was translated into practical degrees, DR. DR. DR. Ahsoka could be the CEO of a massive corporation. 'And all I have to do is get my knowledge translated onto paper.' THAT thought had been crossing Ahsoka's mind all morning. It was a bold move, leaving the order. Ahsoka had heard the horror stories told about Agricore Jedi who thought that they were better than the rest, left and ran into all sorts of 'real life problems,' but she saw through those for exactly what they were, an attempt to control their cash cows. That's right, Ahsoka had checked through the databases she paid to be hacked into and Ahsoka had personally made twenty billion credits for the Jedi order this last year alone. It turns out that the Jedi order would buy barren land dirt cheap, then send Agricore through and afterwords sell it at a premium. With Ahsoka being able to revitalize an entire continent, she was one of the biggest financial contributors to the Jedi order. 'Yet they treat me like shit.'

"Enough!" Ahsoka said out loud. "I'm taking back what is mine, then leaving. I can go into business for myself!" Ahsoka stepped out of the mess hall on the temporary base. She walked towards the 'management office' and opened the door. Two Jedi came up to her from the sides, hands on their lightsabers and asked her what was wrong. Ahsoka ignored them and walked on, causing them to hurry and catch up.

"Is there something wrong with me wanting to look through the management office,' gentlemen?" Ahsoka asked in a sweet falsetto. This threw the Jedi off, they had orders to keep the Agricore Jedi out of the vaults, to keep them ignorant of who really benefited from their work and how much they benefited. It was an open secret in the regular order that Agricore was the financial arm of the Jedi and that they were also the least happy and worst treated. This poor pseudo-Jedi had obviously stumbled upon the truth. Well they would do their duty, even if she was one of the biggest earners on record.

Two lightsabers ignited. If the Jedi order couldn't have her, nobody could. So said the brass.

"Well then, gentlemen, I take it this is self defense then. I wasn't put into Agricore for subpar combat skills, I'll tell you that much." They clashed, Ahsoka locking blades with one and dodging the other. She turned her lightsaber off and angled it towards their heart. Their eyes had a chance to widen before the life left them as their heart was cored on a rod of heated plasma. The other Jedi made a run for it, he never liked this assignment in the first place and wasn't keen on dying for it. Ahsoka grabbed him with a large vine that sprouted from the ground and dragged him back towards her waiting lightsaber. He stopped just short and breathed a sigh of relief, before realising that he didn't actually exhale. His neck was held up by a thick vine and it was squeezing the life out of him. His face went to crimson then purple and after another number of seconds he passed out and subsequently died.

Ahsoka left the vine holding the man up as it was and continued on to where she knew the vaults containing the credit account databases were located. After cutting down the door, her breath was taken away by the sheer number of credits that were stored herre. Ahsoka got to work with the computers, transferring the entirety of her all time earnings from Council accounts to an anonymous one on Nal Hutta linked to a physical token she had around her neck. With Nal Hutta outside of Jedi Council jurisdiction it couldn't be frozen even if they found where it was. Ahsoka figured she was due a little interest so she went ahead and drained the rest of the money she came across as well as setting all of the land titles the Jedi currently owned into her name as well. Ahsoka figured that this was poetic justice and located the most powerful nearby Jedi owned ship that was flyable by two pilots. "HK please go to hangar forty seven, there is a heavily modified blockade runner there that is… was owned by the Jedi."

"Yes Mistress" Said the ancient droid. HK's human had found him in a cave under a ton of sediment. He had been put there by some smugglers that didn't know what to do with him after stealing him from a dealer on some other planet and simply stashed him in one of their caches. Ahsoka had felt him when revitalizing that planet and decided that she would retrieve him. He wasn't the only valuable thing she had found either.

Ahsoka quietly walked to her new transport, trying to draw the least attention to herself as possible. She would be hunted, she knew that much, but she had heard of a new government rising on Tatooine and figured that with her skills she would be able to get a place of honor among its fledgeling government. The wealth of credits she brought with her wouldn't be turned away either, she was sure.

Ahsoka groaned. The Jedi had detected her and she was in another fight, this time against three apprentice level Jedi. She could win conventionally, but it would take time. Ahsoka called out to the force and vines speared up from the ground all over. Before they could wrap up the Jedi they were cut down. Obviously these Jedi were trained specifically as enforcers to keep Agricorps in line so they knew how to counter her powers. 'Well they know how to counter temple taught eco-powers, that is' Ahsoka thought with a small smirk. Ahsoka raised her hands to the side and a massive willow tree sprouted in front of her. It sprouted thousands of smaller vines that shot out for miles, poking tons of coin sized holes in anyone who was unlucky enough to be within 100 meters and not on good terms with her. So everyone.

Ahsoka made the construct clear a path to hangar 47 and beheld her new ship. It was a F.A.S.T-class blockade runner, sometimes known as a mini destroyer. It could hold its own against large blockades of much larger ships for long enough to pass through them unscathed and either outrun them and land somewhere on a planet in secret to deliver a cargo or escape to hyperspace. It was equipped with enough fuel and ammo capacity to do this multiple times without a restock and it had cruiser class shields. The modifications on this particular FAST were an extension of magazines and having half of its usual 12 forward facing heavy lasers (used to target fast moving fighters) replaced with Turbolasers (used for destroying capital class ships) as well as much of its side panelling and side cargo bays replaced with broadside style turbolasers and a few extra point defense heavy lasers bringing its total up to twenty turbolasers and 5 heavy lasers on each side. This motherfucker wasn't going to take shit from anybody. Ahsoka felt a certain kinship with it.

"Alright HK I'm here, let's go!" Ahsoka yelled as she ran up the ramp. HK was already in the cockpit, having a much faster time getting here. He remotely closed the ramp and flared the maneuvering engines to full power, having them shoot into the sky. He was programmed with blockade running tactics, and a good thing too, this was an important Agriworld to the republic and thus has a large military presence in orbit. It was only a matter of time before they made contact with a sizable hostile force. News of her defection probably already reached Coruscant, nevermind the fleet directly in orbit.


	14. Chapter 14

**-Chapter 14-**

Anakin stood on the bridge of his newly acquired super dreadnought watching the white streaks of the hyperspace tunnel slow down and reform into stars. They had been deposited just outside Adriana's largest and outermost Ice Ring. from this position, you could shoot at all three mapped hyperspace entrance/exit points with a simple ship realignment. If you faced the most commonly used one (Galactic Northwest) and the second most commonly used one one (Galactic West) would be able to be targeted by your port ion cannon. The third and last one was somewhere in between, so you could choose to turn left or right to aim something at it. All other vectors were short range jumps into specific locations of black space that could have a sensor beacon placed at them to warn of incoming ships and you would have time to sortie a defense. Tatoo had a large quantity of black holes in the black space around it both charted and uncharted, so it cut the potential thousands of safe approach vectors other systems have down greatly making it one of the most defensible systems in the galaxy.

'I have to remember to get this ship refitted so its turbolasers have more range of movement when he got a shipyard up and running so that it can cover all three entrances simultaneously.' Anakin thought 'Better have them take out the kill-me-target as well while they are at it.'

Anakin walked down to the docking bay. He had gone through the possessions of the Count and the General and hadn't been impressed with their concept of traveling light, on the other hand he HAD been impressed that they had been able to carry so much stuff with them and be logistically effective. Between them they had many forms of currency, plenty of trophy lightsabers and even a few sith holocrons. Dooku had a closet with hundreds of the most luxurious articles of clothing that money can buy in materials ranging from the rarest of linens to the furs of long extinct animals. Anakin had no idea that being a Sith lord paid so well. Maybe he was in the wrong profession. In any case, they were mostly in the core fashions, so while expensive, they weren't Anakin's style even if they had been close to his massive size. Dooku was basically a small body compared to him He was still trying to figure out why General Grievous had a box of condoms tucked under his recharge stand. Nostalgia?

Both of their signature fighters were sitting in the bay with the rest of the usual separatist ground compliment and space forces of a ship this size. 'The executive ships could be sold after the war as historical pieces, not worth using though, I'll scrap the rest.' he thought. As Anakin reached his fighter his comlink went off.

"Go for Skywalker" He said with a slight sigh.

"Go for Skywalker," Said Anakin through Bel's communicator, the kid sounded really annoyed for some reason, better keep this quick.

"This is an update on the state of affairs in Tatoo. I have taken the liberty of putting your NCs to use and ordered a bunch of things needed for planetary redevelopment. Things should start arriving within the next few weeks. I started several shipyards and infrastructure operations. We have mining trawlers a month out to take advantage of your recently claimed asteroid belts. You need to decide what to do with the 'civilian' population at some point. I know you don't like people and that they are annoying to deal with, so why don't you let me handle that. I'll appoint some local governors and get them started on being productive. Maybe teach em how to farm fish or something."

Here Bel paused.

"Well, on with it?" Said Anakin over the comm.

"Your droids captured Mace Windu."

"Your droids captured Mace Windu."

Anakin grinned, Hopefully the Jedi would be amenable to a trade.

"I doubt that the Jedi would pay for him alone, so I propose a heist of their resources and artifacts. Maybe we can take some of their younglings too. Though if we took their archive and all backups…" Said Bel

Anakin cut him off "Then we could absolutely dictate terms. Aside from being the most complete compilation of knowledge in the galaxy, it is the only major compilation of force techniques and without it, they would be basically helpless."

"Yeah, pretty much" Agreed Bel, His image flickered in the blue light.

"Do you have a plan?" Asked Anakin? He doubted it, Bel always was a businessman not a warrior.

"Well…."

"So no then. Don't worry I know it's not your field. I'll take care of that." Said Anakin.

"I have a recording I want you to see, I'm transmitting it now." Bel said "I mocked it up when Windu was captured, gotta be prepared for the Boss's whims."

Anakin looked it over, surprised at Bel's speechwriting. "Brilliant, I will rob the temple quietlike, then a week later, send the Jedi a copy along with a virus to backdate its arrival date to just after we looted the temple, and then leak it to the public at the same time, to make it look as if they had been sitting on it for a while in fear of repercussions of their actions. It will be an uproar.

By this point Anakin had gotten on his personal transport and been taken to the light cruiser carrying his 'Citizen Conscripts.' As he approached, the hangar opened wide, a space clear for him to land at. Anakin jumped out and met up with his honor guard who escorted him to the room holding the majority of the engineers.

"Alright, we are in the Tatoo system, You will be loaded onto drop ships and taken to a facility in my compound that has been cleared out just for your use. Multiple shipyards are under construction in system, but until their completion you will be making plans for ships and other vehicles to my specifications." Anakin said. He held up a thick book, "This is a compilation of what I need designed. My specialty is podracers, so the measurements are in that industry's system. Pay is 10,000 NCs a year."

The droids led the engineers to dropships to ditch them on the planet. Anakin hoped that they didn't try anything. He had just had this ship scrubbed a few days ago. In an unusual display of prudence, he didn't move the team that was focused on the stealth cruiser, no need to tempt fate.

'Now for the heist,' thought Anakin. He pulled up a display and started making adjustments to an old project he had designed as a way to turn sand into water. Obviously he was, figuratively, smoking spice by thinking that was possible, but the design he had come up with was good for another thing. It could be reconfigured as, to put it simply, a 3d printer for stealth nanomachines. He ensured that the new design of the printer was sufficient for his needs and sent it off to the fabrication station in his house. It would take a few days to make one of them, but after that he could print out a pound of nanomachines an hour. If he put about 20 pounds of them into a hyper capable stealth pod, he could simply land it on the Jedi temple's lawn, have them retrieve everything of value and bring it all back with only an hour or so down time. Then the pod can be recalled. 'Damn this strategy can be used in so many other places as well,' though Anakin. 'I'm not going to bother with the damn younglings, just another over complicated bit of pointless shit that can blow the op, Vos will just have to rewrite his little ransom note. Hmm maybe I can change that little bit too."

Eventually, after designing the necessary nanobot for the op Anakin closed the program and went to the hangar, proceeding to fly his fighter down to his compound. 'I never thought I would say this, but from this point of view, Tatooine is beautiful,' thought Anakin as he crossed from space to upper atmosphere.


	15. Chapter 15

**-Chapter 15-**

 **A/N: I toyed over the idea of including the heist itself, but ultimately I decided against it. Suffice to say that Anakin looted the fuck out of that motherfucking motherfucker. Maybe in a future chapter. If there is enough call for it i will relent.**

"…and throw in publicly admitting your fault directly to the entire senate." The hologram of the grizzled Togruta Secretary of State fizzled out and for a moment there was absolute silence on the senate floor. To attempt to rob the Jedi Temple was considered the epitome of madness. To get away with it indicated that all other vaults might as well be hinged doors with no closing mechanism just swaying back and forth in the breeze. Not only was the temple guarded by thousands of a Jedi at a time, they had the best physical security systems that money can buy, Turbolaser batteries, electrified corridors, all the latest in terms of locks and cybersecurity. After the last sack, the Jedi had flouted their peaceful ways and reliance on the force for the continued security of their home base and contracted the best military engineers and generals galaxy wide to turn it into a fortress capable of withstanding planetary assault. To protect them from stealth insertions hadn't been their goal, the force would warn them if a being came, the more powerful and capable, the greater the warning. Droids weren't commonly held to be capable of the level of stealth needed to bypass the previous physical security countermeasures against stealth, but obviously 'Skywalker' was capable of such construction and had exploited that weakness.

"Well that happened." Said Chancellor Palpatine. 'Hmm I really need to look into this 'Baron' again I've obviously overlooked his capabilities. To build droids that could potentially sneak up on and assassinate a Jedi? I gotta get him under my wing,' The Chancellor thought to himself, before adding verbally; "We cannot afford to part with 10 million tons of hypermatter. It is a strategic military resource, All of it that we have is dedicated to the war effort, there is nothing to spare in trade for some old relics of a forgotten age and a few vague records, regardless of the time spanned. Besides, even if we did make a special purchase, it would destroy our military superiority over Skywalker in a matter of weeks" That he didn't want Windu back went unstated, though it was a prevalent opinion.

"Why was this not brought before the Senate a week ago?" Shouted a Senator who had finally shaken himself from the general stupor.

"Yeah, Why was the Jedi Council trying to hide this? Shame?" said another Senator, this one on Palpatine's payroll "Was there a super weapon stolen or something? IF Skywalker has Jedi weapons, the republic needs to know! Give us a list!"

At the word Superweapon, the Jedi present flinched... and people freaked out.

"WHAT? Why do the Jedi have a Superweapon in the heart of Coruscant?" The same senator, one Bail Prestor Organa. "Excuse me, I meant DID, as obviously you couldn't protect them from a mere crime lord!" Bail had been a longtime proponent of the Jedi Order, yet one mention of the word Superweapon was all it took to turn him into a hardliner radical. "What does Skywalker have now?"

Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, who was the highest ranking Jedi present. spoke slowly; "I should probably make sure we are all on the same page regarding recent events. The Jedi strike team we sent to… negotiate with Skywalker was composed of many experts of our order, most prominently Battlemaster Mace Windu, Kit Fisto and Adi Gallia. We can assume all of them are dead with the exception of Mace Windu as Skywalker has a history of wiping out Jedi strike teams sent against him. There were 5000 clone troopers sent as well, but it appears they never made it to the planet, we cannot contact their ship either. Without a detailed local map, travelers in that region are vulnerable to the multitude of black holes surrounding Tatoo and it is assumed the clone escort met with an untimely fate. They were supposed to back the Jedi strike team up but when they didn't show, Master Windu decided to go on with the plan anyways. This was a mistake as we have seen. According to Intelligence gathered by Republic Agents, Jedi Shadows and intercepted reports from Separatist Spies, Skywalker employs a force of several thousand military droids far above the highest known performance tiers designed by himself and for a large portion put together by himself as well. He has an efficient repair system with a full turnaround time of less than a day even on the most damaged models. This allowed him to wield incredible influence in the Tatooine underworld before he ascended to the sole authority. At one point, an open war was waged between him and the entirety of the rest of the factions on Tatooine and he won, getting extremely favorable terms for a 'truce,' though it looked more like a surrender than any I've seen. As it turns out, The strike force would have encountered this droid force, not Anakin. According to reports from Corellia, Anakin was out of system at this time kidnapping Corellian citizens from their workplaces." Master Mundi paused and took a breath, an embarrassed look coming to his face.

"As we know, The message displayed was dated a week ago, however we received it yesterday evening and brought it here immediately this morning. No doubt a ploy to destroy our credibility." Added another Jedi Master present.

"I'm still not hearing what the Superweapon stolen was. This is important information, We need to take it into account when making any plans around or against him." Insisted Bail, not falling for the distraction

"You aren't going to like it…" Said Master Mundi with a grimace.

"It doesn't matter if we don't like the truth. Frankly, it can and will still get shoved up our collective asses in a moment of inattention." Added the representative from the Trade Federation Lott Dod.

"Very well, to be more specific, the Jedi Order had blueprints for near-super weapons ranging from ridiculously advanced targeting systems to system defense emplacements that can be set in front of a hyperspace exit point and selectively shred ships lacking the communication code as they come out of hyperspace. In the hands of a mind of Skywalker's caliber with the engineers that he now has, the possibilities are limitless. I am under no false impression that he will be giving copies of these back should a ransom be paid. In addition to this, we had a stockpile of stable thought bombs captured in past conflicts with the Sith. To the uninformed, these weapons target and destroy all life on a planet by targeting the connection to the force that they have. We are lucky that he did not see fit to detonate one on his way out, though we have multiple teams of Jedi searching Coruscant high and low for them as we speak, he may have secreted one away somewhere. Again, these are gone, regardless of a ransom being paid."

Nobody in the room spoke, The implications of that level of firepower were unfathomable.

"And WHY did the Jedi have these things?" Asked Bail, Face looking pale even as he yelled.

"According to the logs we could find, the ones who stored them away at the time had hoped to be able to use them against a resurgence of the Sith Empire, though their uses are situational at best if one is trying to avoid innocent casualties." Answered Mundi, though there was really no good answer. "Furthermore, they are a unique and ancient piece of history that have been untouched and forgotten for the last 1000 years. The only reason we know that they are gone is because Skywalker left us a list of what he took, to rub it into our faces. It is likely we would have disposed of them had we known of their existence. The under levels of the Jedi Temple go all the way to the planet's surface, with most of it having been put outside our security perimeter out of sheer practicality. It's only the topmost hundred or so levels that have seen traffic in the past centuries outside the odd eccentric. The council is working to remedy this and take a full inventory. I fear that it will be as the saying goes, Too little too late."

'Yes, we definitely need to have another chat, Skywalker and I.' Thought Palpatine.

"Well they certainly aren't Illegal, since they wouldn't have been listed anywhere in laws, so the incarnation of the Jedi Order of that time is perhaps guilty of negligence with regard to dangerous substances, but there is nothing to be prosecuted at this time." Said Palpatine. "However I must point out that war with Skywalker is the LAST thing that the Republic can spare at this time and unfortunately he will only grow more dangerous with age and preparation time. We must try to mend bridges and hopefully welcome him into the republic. To that end I ask Senator Amidala to go to Tatooine and attempt to negotiate a peace treaty with him, She has... past experience with Skywalker." Palpatine paused. "That will go over far better if we complied with his ransom request, so all in favor of a special purchase of the materials he requested?"

Not a single senator neglected to raise their hand, the fear of conflict was so strong.

"All in favor of making him keep Master Windu" Palpatine added on the end as a joke.

Not a single senator neglected to raise their hand, the rage at that motherfucker was so strong.


End file.
